


A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step

by fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn



Series: Strangers In A Strange Land [3]
Category: Legacy of Kain
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dom/sub, M/M, Vampire Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-30
Updated: 2010-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:54:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kain is given the chance to return to Nosgoth, but the Powers decree that an elder Raziel must accompany him.  Raziel has travelled backwards and forwards in time--but never before with Kain.  Can he take the risk that a fledgling Kain might find out the connection between them, and change his own history?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Prodigal

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of explanation: these stories were originally written for a long-running crossover RPG called [ Multiverse Haven](http://multiversehaven.livejournal.com) (now sadly defunct). The basic premise of the game was that characters had been pulled from multiple worlds and marked as Chosen, in order to eventually restore a dying multiverse. Because of this, there may be occasional references to characters from other novels/anime/games, along with a little vampire terminology borrowed from WoD and the Dark Jewels novels. The main focus is on Kain and Raziel and their return to Nosgoth, however, and will eventually weave in and around LoK canon as an entirely separate storyline.
> 
> As a Chosen, both Kain and Raziel have been plucked from their respective timelines and from Nosgoth--only to be trapped within this strange world called 'Haven', and left subject to the whims of mysterious 'Powers'. Needless to say, this does not go over well ...

Kain received the 'announcement' from the 'chairman' on the morning of the 25th of January.

He spent the next day preparing.

The first order of business was to write down what he knew of this place -- to make full accounting of the plans he'd made. Kain called for his placeholder squires, and they brought him writing paper aplenty, and also something like slateboards, though these were white and meant to be written on with odiferous pens of many colors.

Kain listed what he knew, or suspected, of all the Chosen he'd met so far, of their worlds and their abilities. Kain noted the Powers -- what he knew of them -- and also what he'd learned of the ways this place functioned. Kain might not be able to draw a pattern from any of the knowledge now, but if this little 'vacation' proved fatal, one of the other Chosen who also sought freedom might need this information, should they mount assault against the Powers.

At last, Kain took one last look around his 'office.' Notebooks full of neatly handwritten observations and drawn maps were stacked on the desk. Several white boards, covered by more notations, stood against the walls. Kain reached back to touch the hilt of the Reaver, both drawing comfort from the wash of its power, and spurred on by the ever-increasing depth of its hunger.

Before he left, he made sure to prop the balcony doors open.

As it turned out, he needn't have bothered.

Haku, at the bathhouse -- a fearful pace full of water and steam -- had been patient and unaccommodating. The Power took the form of a young, lithe boy, seeming no older than perhaps sixteen, but age and puissance lurked behind those eyes. Not that it mattered -- when the Power refused him return to his world, Kain would have at least tried tearing him apart, regardless of the watery hazards around them. But the infuriating boy also told him that he could return in another's company under the auspices of someone also from Nosgoth.

 

Kain set out in search of Raziel.

Raziel had been given his letter at his eyrie, from a placeholder messenger. It lay there still, the paper edges now torn and ragged from the incautious grasp of his talons as he had absorbed the message within.

_Home._ He could go back to Nosgoth ... as himself. Whenever he wished. In his own form.

He had to fight back the sudden urge to demand the Powers do so immediately, and forced himself to think. He existed in too many times and places in Nosgoth, in various forms. What if he encountered ... himself? Or himself *and* the Reaver? If he ventured back, would he harm what small repairs Kain might have already affected? But if Nosgoth was dying regardless, what did it matter?

He could see the Pillars again. The Sanctuary. His own keep—his own *clan*. That last thought struck him breathless with anticipatory fear. The Razielim. He could go back and ...

No. Dead was dead. For his own sanity, he had to believe that. The idea still refused to leave, however. The possibilities were too numerous, and too tempting. He paced like a caged wolf, back and forth in the confines of the loft, as he thought.

Locating Raziel's domain was simple enough, and once close, Kain could detect Raziel's aura within, as black and thick as a dark sun on the rise. Good. Kain had thought it likely that Raziel would have departed for his own era. He didn't bother with the front door of the warehouse: he had no idea how complex the structure was inside. Instead, he jumped from street level to rooftop -- tried, anyway; managed to climb the last few body lengths with nails dug hard into the crumbling mortar.

Once atop the structure, Kain brushed himself off and took a deep breath. This was no indelicate request he needed to make. Kain raised his fist and brought it down hard, thrice, on the exterior door.

Raziel had heard the scrape and footfalls of Kain's approach. He supposed he should not have been surprised—no doubt his sire had been given the same message. As much as he disliked the interruption to his thoughts, he doubted very much that Kain would be so obliging as to leave if he was ignored.

With a half-growl, half-sigh of impatience, he walked over and yanked the door open. "Enter or not, as you will," Raziel said abruptly, and turned away.

The corner of Kain's mouth turned up fractionally as the door was jerked open and the summary invitation extended. And then maintaining that calmly amused expression abruptly became difficult as the Reaver roused, a slow and crackling unfurling. It had been 'behaving' oddly, so to speak, around many of the Chosen recently -- around anything with a consumable soul, Kain assumed. He ignored the blade now with determination, but leaned against the brickwork, just on the outside of the opened door. He needed no interruption from the blade, nor reminder of its ire. "It seems you received the missive as well, then," Kain said. "What make you of it?"

"I am inclined to believe it as bait. The Powers have shown us their whip-hand ... now they proffer rewards in the hopes of swaying our loyalties to their cause," Raziel growled, pacing back to the table to stare at the tattered letter once more. "Either that or a trap—something that can be taken away from us should we misbehave. Even so, I am loathe to admit it but trap or no, they have baited it well..."

Kain snorted softly and turned his head. "Baited well indeed." As so it was -- the chance at freedom alone, the opportunity to regain his destiny, was nearly as compelling as was the livewire blade he bore. Kain thought on what Haku had told him, and how easily Raziel could acquire the information from other sources. "But evidently not baited for me. I sought the Power within the bathhouse. How long have you been entrapped in this realm, Raziel?"

Raziel lifted his head, frowning at his too-young sire. "About a year's time. Why?"

Kain gritted his teeth briefly, but deliberately kept his posture relaxed. Kain was not in the foolish habit of concealing information that could be otherwise easily obtained. But that did not make admitting this... this damnably witless restriction any easier. "Because the offer, whether trap or bait, is available only to those who have been resident longer than six months."

Raziel's eyes narrowed. "Interesting. I presume they told you why?" Did they fear that their captives would elude them once returned to their own worlds?

"Of course they did not," Kain snarled, nearly baring fang before he could compose himself. He'd been resident only a month, and already the Powers' partiality for arbitrary decisions had been well impressed upon him. "Or rather, none other than that they wished their Chosen to 'make friends' with the individuals here, first." Which was, to Kain's way of thinking, no explanation at all. Was Kain supposed to have the inclination to -- what? Host court hunting parties here, whilst his world and his fate lay at stake?

Swallowing his fury, Kain offered what he did know. There were portals involved, and amulets -- that much knowledge Kain had obtained, though in truth, he'd been too enraged to ask many questions. "Finally... it is apparently possible to bring others back to ones' world."

"I suddenly become enlightened as to why you have sought me out," Raziel said wryly. It did not take a scholar to see what lay before you, after all. "You wish to go back to Nosgoth under my auspices."

"Of course I do," Kain snorted softly, having made no secret of the fact. He glanced down, considering his dusty talons. Kain thought a moment on what he knew of the stream of Nosgoth's history -- on what he thought he knew, and on what he could only speculate. "Though to be sure, I have no way of knowing to what time the Powers would send you, nor whether you could convince them to allow you to choose a time, nor indeed whether your timestream bears any resemblance to mine own."

"I do know, however, that they would permit the both of us... to return to my era." It was, he considered, a chancy proposition. Considering Raziel's potence, Kain might as well hand his age over to the other vampire upon a plate. But Kain had eminently compelling reason to return to a place -- any place -- with consumable souls as quickly as possible. And for that bait... he would walk into even this trap.

"Your era ... " Raziel frowned, thinking of what he knew of Kain's earlier years. Not as much as he would prefer, honestly. It would be a safer time and place to return to than his own, in one sense—little chance of running into himself. But in another—the Sarafan were still in force, the Pillars newly fallen—it would be exceedingly dangerous, especially with himself and the Reaver in constant proximity.

"What have you left behind in your era that you are so eager to return to it?" he asked, feigning ignorance as he tried to think.

Kain clenched his fist for a moment. Ancient scrolls sought in hidden caches, the secret places untouched for millennia uncovered by his hand. Destiny. A dice-toss, and the prize -- salvation. What had he left behind? "The earliest makings of the very empire you know to fall," he admitted. "The pillars crumble more each year, however, and the hunters and the maddened beasts... are both very many. The world is not as it once was, but nor is it twisted as you describe it." If Raziel chose to part ways with him, Kain would seek to utilize the timepools the armored vampire had mentioned -- once he'd fed the Reaver, of course. Kain had too many questions regarding Raziel, and his place in history, that he could not truly ask the other vampire directly.

Kain considered a moment longer. "You stated earlier that you risk imprisonment in your own era. Should you choose to return thence instead, I may be able to offer you assistance there." While it nettled Kain sorely to offer his aid in return for a boon, in truth, Kain would probably have sought a way to circumvent Raziel's fate anyway. If he could.

Eyes flicking involuntarily to the distinctive form of the Reaver's hilt, only the most generous of men could have called the expression that twisted Raziel's lips a smile. "Do not make promises you cannot keep, Kain." He turned his gaze away, looking at a tapestry blankly. "Did the Powers say whether we ... you would be allowed to stay? Or can we expect to be snatched back, should we overstay our welcome?"

Kain snarled a little, for powerful though Raziel might be, Kain's own resourcefulness and abilities were by no means negligible. At least, he hoped they were not. He'd yet to truly see Raziel fight. Still -- "They did not so say, though I admit I did not ask. I know that 'vacations' are supposedly 'not to be used to pop back and forth,' but rather to..." and how had the Power phrased it? Ah, yes -- "...visit friends and attend to unfinished business. In addition, more than one 'vacation' is so permitted, though by arrangement."

"So the Powers' hand is still upon our leash, I see." Raziel turned to face Kain once more. Instinct told him this was a bad idea, but it was overridden by the sheer force of his desire. To be able to fly in Nosgoth's skies, reclaim that lost chance and perhaps others ... "Very well. I shall accompany you back to your time. I shall give you fair warning, however—I do not intend to take up permanent residence in it, even should the Powers permit."

"Your assistance would make building an empire far easier; and in any case, a being from the future can exist without peril in the past," Kain pointed out, for he was certain the thought would, or had, occurred to Raziel. If the other vampire wanted to bring down the human nations of Kain's era... Kain suspected he could. Perhaps even single-handedly, if Raziel were able to produce fledglings. Best to gauge Raziel's interest in empire-building now, rather than later, should Kain find himself at odds with the powerful elder.

Raziel snorted. "The former is most assuredly true, but as to the latter..." He gave Kain a sardonic look. "I am sure I would soon find myself supplanted." By his younger self, no less, though Kain did not yet know that.

Kain nodded, careful to conceal his pleasure -- powerful though Raziel might be, Kain would eventually find a way to unseat him, should his aspirations prove too lofty. It was well -- very well indeed -- that Raziel accepted that. "In that case, have you affairs to finish here? Apparently, no other Chosen has ventured to their own world. If this is some further attempt at entrapment by the Powers..." well. He thought it unlikely -- why entice a bird into a cage when it was already held in the hand? -- but not impossible. The Powers' motivations had been opaque to date.

"Some few matters, yes. When did you plan to make your departure?" Raziel suppressed his amusement at the sight of Kain's eagerness.

Kain nodded. "I have already made those preparations I require, and am prepared to leave at any time." Indeed, he would have done so several hours ago, though... he might not have stayed for long. The possibilities that Raziel represented would probably have drawn him back. But the Reaver, quite simply, took precedence to Kain's curiosity.

Kain gave the address of the warehouse Haku described. "I can meet you there, or collect you here, if you require several days." He didn't know what entanglements Raziel would have collected over a year, but he suspected there might be more than a few.

"I should need no more than a day at most, I believe." Gaara needed to be told, of course—perhaps Dante as well, though the half-demon had been scarce of late. If necessary, Gaara could tell him. Kimimaro as well. Remus had been whisked away by the Powers, and along with him their magick lessoning, and Hatsumomo by this point was so heavily pregnant that there was little point in their lessons at all. Still, he would leave a message for her, if only to forestall the inevitable fit of temper.

There was also the matter of supplies—the Nosgoth of Kain's era was not a friendly place for vampires. Raziel felt sure of his own skills, but even the eldest of vampires could be pulled down by a sufficiently large mob—Vorador had proved that. Going back with an ample supply of materia and other weaponry, magick or otherwise, would be a necessity.

"I shall meet you at this warehouse a day hence, at nightfall. That should serve."

Kain nodded and stepped back, clearing the doorway. "Until then, Raziel." And, rather than turning to present his back -- and the blade that hung there -- to the other vampire, he allowed himself to dissolve into thick roiling mist, ghosting up and over the edge of the rooftop.

Not that he was fool enough to believe that the blade would do... anything on its own, but... well. The sooner he could feed it, the better.


	2. A Journey Of A Thousand Miles ....

Raziel landed near the designated warehouse at the appointed time—not quite evening, but just as the sun had relinquished its last hold on the day, and fallen out of sight over the edge of the world. He had left his messages and made his preparations; a fair-sized pouch was slung from his baldric, and sword and wand were both scabbarded at his side.

Landing and folding his wings with one last flourish, he gave Kain a nod of acknowledgment. "I am ready."

Kain watched Raziel land, the other vampire's form dark against the brilliant hues of sunset.  The hilt of the Reaver stood over his shoulder.  He returned the nod, gaze flicking across the other's... baggage.  Was it possible that the magic of this transportation might have effect upon the dimensional cantrip Kain used to store his own equipment?  He'd not even thought of that concern.  "Good eve.  This seems to be the correct address, but there is but one entrance, and it is sealed." The only large set of double doors was set into a recess of some body lengths, and to Kain's frustration, they formed an airtight seal.  

"Indeed?" Raziel surveyed the building up and down—it was a mostly featureless lump of concrete, with those two doors the only distinguishing feature. Frowning, he headed for them, running a taloned hand over the surface; no wards or glyphs flared. There was also a small box to one side of it, with a switch of some kind, but pressing it produced only a burst of noise and nothing more. His frown deepened.

"Do they wish us to beg entrance?" Irritated, he curled talons into a fist and hammered it against the door, knocking hard enough to make them rattle in their hinges.

Kain followed, then turned his attention to the box set into the wall.  Raziel discovered a small switch he'd previously missed, and he examined it, causing the sound to crackle forth several times as he spoke.  "Perhaps this box may be pried from the wall?" Kain queried, beginning to work his nails around the edge -- carefully, for the moment.  It made little sense -- how were Chosen of lesser physical strength to gain entrance?  Was this a trap of sorts after all?

"Tearing up the intercom is not a good way to get service," a voice said over the speaker. The voice sounded young, and cool, and mildly amused.

"What do you need?"

Kain drew back from the device as the voice issued forth. "I require passage to my home plane. Is this where I obtain it?" He passed his hand across the brickwork. Was there a human located somewhere on the other side of the wall?

Raziel simply stood, eyes watchful, hand on the hilt of his sabre.

"You're Kain, and Raziel is with you... yes," the voice replied, and the door latch clicked open.

The door slid back and there was a young man - some would say a boy - on the other side. He had silverwhite hair and bluegreen eyes and his hair was confined in a scarf tied with training ends.

"Come in," he said. "And please stay close to me."

The Warehouse had been cleaned and repaired and had resumed full operation. It was much as Roy Mustang had seen it, over a year ago.

The building beyond seemed to be one single room, filled with people moving to and fro, carrying packages, entering and exiting from doorways that ran up and down both side walls of the room and along the back. Each doorway seemed to be filled with mist, and had a light above it that was blinking red or green. The green ones seemed to be the ones that people were gravitating towards as they entered and exited.

The boy turned, and Kain stepped forward cautiously. He couldn't tell if the creature were human. With the opening of the doors, too many strange scents intruded. Green scents, like thick jungles; the salt of oceans; the dryness and acrid burn of industrial cities.

Raziel absorbed the scents much the same way Kain did--his eyes flickering back and forth between the boy that led them and the other activity around. "Who are you? Are you one of the Powers?" he asked as they walked.

"I'm MakubeX," the boy said. "And I'm not a Power. I work for Daneel." He led them over to one of the doorways, which was open, but filled with mist. The light above it was red.

MakubeX turned to the two vampires and reached into a pocket, taking out two medallions on chains. They were round and flat.

"Wear these while you are gone," he said. "When you are ready to come back, break the medallion."

Kain's accepted the amulet. It was a garish blue thing, circular, but plain as if it were meant for a metallic setting. His gaze flicked around the cavernous chamber, the lights, the movement -- the red-lighted archway. It was a very great deal to take in. "Do Chosen return to the moment they were taken, or does time pass there as it does here?" He asked. The removal of the Chosen form their home planes was serious enough -- but if all the activity Kain was viewing involved tampering across the dimensions... gods. The Powers quite possibly had their claws into hundreds -- thousands -- of worlds. What of the destines with which they interfered? What of the fates and the futures of all those many worlds?

Kain knew well how the repercussions of a single act could echo down throughout all the manifold pathways of time. Witnessing meddlesomeness on such a scale as this engendered a quiet, cold rage.

Perhaps the unraveling the Powers foresaw would be brought about by their own trespasses.

Prophesies had a way of self-fulfillment.

Taking his own pendant, Raziel regarded it with suspicion, but hung it around his neck anyway, tucking it out of the way beneath the straps of his armor. This whole expedition was a risk, calculated or otherwise, and there was no use in avoiding it. They had to go through it, play into the Powers' designs, and see what they may on the other side.

"We intend to return to Kain's time, and not my own." If he could indeed *have* a time to call his own anymore.

MakubeX nodded. "Some time here in Haven will pass, but possibly not exactly the same amount of time you are gone. It may be more, it may be less. We have to be careful," he said, glancing at Kain, "Not to disrupt the timestream. One other thing - if either of your break your medallion, both will be brought back together - you understand?"

The mist in the doorway swirled and began to clear and the light above it began to blink yellow, then green.

Kain tucked the amulet away most carefully. He nodded. "I understand, MakubeX. How much time has passed there, whilst I have been here?" The state of the pillars, of his own world, concerned him. He did not think it would have suffered irretrievable harm in his absence, as Kain was still alive though on a different plane, but.... There was no way to be certain. The very possibility of his own world, so close, left him tense with anticipation.

As the mist began to clear, Raziel could not keep from drawing in a breath as the familiar forests and mountains were revealed. And a sky--incredibly blue, and bright. Eyes fixed only on that vista, he stepped forward without even knowing it, hesitating right on the threshold. Waiting for Kain with an ingrained obedience that even now he could not quite discard ...

"That's not an easy question to answer, but we're taking you to as close to the time you left as we can, within the limitations of the timestream's integrity," MakubeX replied. "Now, we can't keep the gate open long so if there are no more questions..."

There were no more questions. Kain turned with iron-spined arrogance, perhaps dismissing the -- whatever MakubeX was; perhaps just trusting the Reaver to watch his back. Kain glanced briefly to Raziel, then to the brilliance of the day before him. He thought it might be someplace south of Vasserbunde. Kain had been gone naught but a month, but the yearning was... like a taste in his mouth. Exhaling deeply, stripping the thick strangeness of this place from his lungs, Kain moved to take the lead. And stepped through the portal.

Raziel was a heartbeat behind. The portal was familiar in some ways--the bone-chilling cold, the instant of disorientation and utter *aloneness* of being between worlds, between times--and not in others. There was a wrenching, as if they were falling from a dizzying height ...

...and then his next step puffed up dry soil.

Raziel blinked, vision tearing up a bit at the impact of full daytime sun. So bright! He had forgotten how punishingly bright Nosgoth's unveiled sun could be ... he had been near this time as a wraith, but then his senses had been different, more attuned to death rather than life, and the sun held no interest for him. Now, as a vampire once more, he found he could withstand it, if with some discomfort. Taking another step, he turned his face up to the sky, eyes slitted almost shut, as he breathed in deep the scents of forest, of earthy loam, wind and woodsmoke. He had longed for this ...

The vertigo of the passage weakened Kain's knees, but the fulfillment of arriving _home_ nearly drove him to them. Something clicked back into place, something so central to his being he'd not really understood that he'd lacked it. Something tainted, but no less glorious for it.

Kain blinked up for a moment, himself. The cruelty of sunlight washed over him, a constant sucking drain on his strength. The power of the wraith armor he wore faded in moments, the smoky black steel growing brittle and heavy.

Still, oh. To be _home_.

Compared to that sudden completeness, the sight, scents, and sounds of Kain's home world were small pleasures, but ones newly treasured after the pervasive annoyances of Haven. He stood on a verdant slope, the ground growing hilly and thick with trees to his right, snow-capped mountains rising over all. And then Raziel appeared there, stepping out of nothingness, the other vampire blinking into the light. It felt oddly right to have him here. With a small smile, unable to entirely contain his delight, Kain returned his own enjoyment of the scene.

And to Kain's left... dust plumes. Distant, but this wide plain offered no cover of any utile sort. And -- though Kain was forced to squint through the glare -- the cloud was moving too quickly to be raised by footsoldiers. That meant horsemen, and probably lances and dogs. Or mages.

Kain glanced behind. There was no portal.

He reached out to Raziel's shoulder, a little regretful of breaking the other's reunion. "Come, Raziel," he said, starting towards the distant trees, and the thick shadows and underbrush they harbored.


	3. Alea Iacta Est-The Die Has Been Cast

It was a half-hour walk to the edge of the forest -- or would have been, had they gone straight there.

Kain kept as swift a pace as possible in the heat and the sun. His own dead-black armor was not particularly conspicuous, at least, not at a fair distance. Raziel's bright bronzed pauldrons and the red splash of his cape... were somewhat moreso. Kain kept an eye, when possible, on the plume of dust raised by the distant hunting party. And circled around hills to avoid their crests, keeping to the valleys and wooded transverses where scrub and small trees cast at least a little shade.

The edge of the forest was deep and cool with shadows. Kain found, to his relief, that his dimensional storage functioned just as well here as it did in Haven. He withdrew an ankle-length cloak, pattered in shades of green, and proffered it. Though it nettled, Kain doubted he could prevent the other vampire from going his own way if he wished; instead Kain had best make certain that Raziel was as well-prepared as possible for the area and the time.

The... purported time. Kain would have to find out exactly when he was.

"Know you the geography of this era?" Kain asked.

Raziel raised an eyebrow at the concealing cloak, but took it. Shrugging it on, he said, "Well enough to serve. Mountains do not change their shape swiftly, after all." And his trips backward in time, chasing Kain, had freshened his memories of its forests and other hazards. "What is your thinking? I mislike running like hares before the hounds." Caution was only prudent, in this age full of Sarafan and their ilk. But Raziel did not intend to run from everything he might encounter.

"By all means, carve a swath through the hounds if you" _can_, though in truth, Raziel looked little discomforted by the full brightness of the day. Kain's own exposed skin would have begun to pinken with burn had be tried to spend much time in the full sunlight. And fighting whilst weakened like this... was not among Kain's most favored pursuits. Kain did not intend it should be *himself* who tested whether the Powers would pluck him from his home once more, should he be slain in battle. "must. As for myself..."

Kain paused, looking out over the low hills, trying to get his bearings before plunging deeper into the tangled forest. "There should still be a small cavern perhaps half a mile through the forest. There are small farming villages there and there -- " Kain pointed out the folds in the landscape. One of those settlements would burn, come nightfall. "Vassarbunde is twenty miles west of here, and a spirit forge fifty miles southwest. The Pillars are a hundred and fifty miles due south." Kain paused. "I would seek them as soon as possible, if not this eve. What of yourself?"

"A decent plan. If they are hunters, however, they will do their best to waylay us before nightfall." Humans were day-hunters, and they used that to their advantage. Raziel smiled—a feral baring of fangs. He was not minded to wait until nightfall to taste their blood.

"Your plan has merit. In the meantime, however—I believe I shall turn hunters into hunted." His wings stirred under the concealing cloak in anticipation of the coming battle. "Stay under cover. I shall flush out these pigs."

Kain felt his eyes widen a little before he could conceal his astonishment. Raziel wished to beard the hunters _now_, just past high noon? When Kain doubted the two vampires had even been seen? Raziel was vastly powerful to be sure, but -- Kain nodded, and began stripping off the useless wraith armor, summoning wickedly thorned platemail in its stead. "If they can be lead or prodded into that gully, their horses will do them no favors." The place was a minute away, perhaps, if Kain ran in wolf form.

Looking in the direction intended, Raziel nodded in agreement. "Very well." He flashed a hunter's humorless smile at his too-young sire. "I shall attempt to leave some for your ambush." Turning, he surveyed the underbrush around them—then headed off at an angle to their track, melting into the dappled shadows with soundless ease.

Kain could not contain his hiss of annoyance at all, his claws clamped tight on a bloody-red gauntlet. Damnation! He looked to the faint trail Raziel had taken; tried to remember where it lead. It had been several years since Kain had last explored this area, but there was a stony outcropping some ways further on, just away from the edge of the forest. Raziel might be planning to use it, and if so... then Raziel would intercept the hunters somewhere near... _there_.

Kain finished with his buckles and then let his limbs melt and merge into those of a dire wolf. He trotted from the shadows, thick fur offering some protection from the sun, though he squinted a little at the light. Upon one of the hilltops, Kain could remain hidden by the low brush and still be able to either fall upon the hunters as well, or help harry them into rougher terrain.

Raziel had crossed and recrossed Nosgoth—sometimes in the Underworld, and sometimes not. Despite his confident answer, the terrain could and did change drastically over the centuries—even in decades. Old roads could be quickly forgotten, swallowed up by Nosgoth's impenetrable forest, and game trails varied by season and creature. Centuries of living had one advantage, however—no matter what clothed it, the bones of the land were the same, and Raziel had learned well how to adapt to such changes.

The mottled cloak had been thrown back over his shoulders, leaving wings unencumbered while still concealing his clan shoulder-cloak. The dappled lights and shadow echoed the ivory of his own skin. Spring was not yet in full flower—there were leaves and new green growth, but more sparse than he would have liked. Cresting a low, rocky rise, Raziel's sharp ears caught the muffled thud of hooves and the creak of leather and chainmail. There were no jests or jocularity as there might have been had these men been hunting mere bears or boar, which only solidified his suspicions. One did not hunt deer or coney on horseback in full armor, after all.

Spying a venerable oak, branches spreading out above the rise, Raziel smiled. A quick swing, and he was in the tree, talons gripping easily as he ascended with the nimbleness stolen from Zephon, and perched upon a convenient limb. This was not the first time he had used such a tactic—even the most experienced human hunter seldom thought to look upward. Much less to expect a winged predator...

Kain slowed as he caught the scent of horses... and dogs. The canines could be as dangerous as the humans. Kain detoured to swing down-breeze of the moving party, and caught a glimpse of them as he trotted along the lee-side of one hill.

Not a single unit, this, but rather a pair. Moebius' peasant rabble were more numerous, but also a far more ragged lot. The Sarafan, however, organized themselves into squads of six men each. These particular bands must be traveling together -- there were four horsemen lancers in chain and scale, and four crossbowmen afoot, in leather. Two more men on foot each held leashed a pair of mastiffs.

There should be two other men. Kain couldn't see or scent them.

A bigger hunting party than he had expected—curious, given that this time was devoid of any other vampires other than Kain. Or should be ... Raziel wondered if that too had changed on the turn of the elder Kain's coin. Sitting in the shadow of the tree, he found himself grateful that chance had placed him downwind. The hunters were just now entering the foothills bordering the forest, and the dogs would have caught his scent in an instant, otherwise.

It seemed they had not spotted either him or Kain, however. They were following roughly on the vampires' track, but there was a certain laxity in their manner—and one of the foot-soldiers, their tracker by the looks of it, was frowning at the odd-shaped tracks left by Raziel's cloven feet. And dropping behind were the two mages. One had even dismounted from his palfrey—Raziel's sharp eyes easily picked out the thrown shoe. He gave a soft chuckle. Perfect.

He waited, motionless in his shadowy perch, until the vanguard had passed beneath his outcropping. Then he moved, dropping to a smooth boulder, and then down into the small clearing where the mages still were. As much as he wanted to fly, and pick them off thusly, he knew the noise created by his taking to the air would betray him too soon. So he reverted to older tactics. He reached the edges of the shadows—then, with a smooth rush he darted forward, talons open and ready. The mage dealing with his mount did not even see his attacker—Raziel gutted him in two swift motions, and threw him to one side, already dead. His companion shouted in horror and rage as the horses whinnied shrilly in fear, and began to summon a fireball. Raziel snarled at him and threw a telekinetic bolt, knocking him off his terrified mount, then leaped before the man could recover.

Flavored by terror and magic, the mage's blood was sweet indeed.

Kain could see the flicker of movement as something -- Raziel, he hoped -- dropped off that distant perch and around the far side of the rocky rise. What was he... and then Kain could clearly hear the shout of panic, quickly cut off.

The force before Kain responded with a ripple of confusion -- they'd apparently not noticed their own two missing men -- and then wheeled with well-drilled speed. All four armored hounds were released to run beside the horsemen, who galloped back at speed. They unwound thick bundles from their saddles as they rode -- nets, Kain knew, and likely blessed against the undead, for the Sarafan hunted more beings than merely vampires, now that their favored quarry were nearly extinct.

The four crossbowmen and pair of animal handlers -- their swords at their belts -- turned in good formation to march back. Six... six was more than Kain cared to handle, but it seemed he might have little choice in the matter. Keeping low, Kain streaked across the open hillside in the form of a wolf.

Hearing the thunder of approaching hoofbeats and the snarling of dogs as the mages' comrades doubled back, Raziel discarded the body of his meal. As the first dogs burst into view, he was already running—at them, not away. Armored and vicious, Sarafan war-dogs were trained to bring down man or vampire, and savage him until more potent weapons could be brought to bear. But they were no match for a thousand-year old vampire lord—Raziel gutted one in mid-leap, and then flung another aside with a sweep of his talons.

The first horseman burst through the underbrush, a net ready in his hands, and Raziel almost laughed. They thought to capture him with a *net*, like a fish? Blessed or not, he was hardly about to stand for it. He dived forward, drawing his sword as he met the attack. The soldier flung the blessed weave, and Raziel dived and rolled under it, one shoulder hitting the earth—then came up on one knee and slashed his sabre across the legs of the man's mount. A terrible equine scream filled the air as both horse and rider crashed to the ground and tumbled, unable to stop.

Distracted by the screaming and the frantic clash of metal as their brethren went into battle around the ridge, the Sarafan footmen didn't notice Kain's approach for a critical few moments. Kain had time enough to transform and then the Reaver was in his hands and he was among the throng of men. A lesser sword struck Kain, but the points of his armor turned the edge, long magical thorns reflecting the harm. And the Reaver... the Reaver sang as he brought it around, carving through one man's chest, slicing through another's skull. Screaming in his hands, the Reaver claimed its first real souls in a month's span.

A blessed bolt broke against the points of Kain's armor. And then another found his back.

The fallen leader broke up the rest of the charge as the remainder of the knights came charging down the trail. Raziel tossed a flay at one of the remaining dogs snapping at his heels, and dodged the downsweep of another sword. The flay stripped flesh from bone in a spray of blood and offal, leaving only a red ruin of a skeleton behind, and Raziel grinned fiercely, savagely, as he cut another knight down, sabre slicing him almost in half.

There was a joy in this—open battle at last, against enemies that were real, and could be defeated—who could die. Another knight tried to tangle him in a net—the blessed strands scorched his hide, but he managed to catch it in mid-air with a swipe of his sabre and fling it away. The remaining two knights and their surviving hound were more wary now, circling him at a distance. Raziel bared fangs in a bloody and defiant snarl. Their caution would not save them.

The delay as Kain dragged the Reaver from the blasted carcasses of the Reaver's kills proved costly. The bowmen were able to retreat, and now fired quarrel after quarrel into the Kain's thin armor. And though the physical damage was oft reflected, the burn of the blessed bolts was far worse, and that the armor did not affect. Both animal handlers -- good swordsmen both -- kept Kain at bay without great trouble in the strength-sapping sunlight. At last, the Reaver's serpentine length swept past one human's defenses, and the blade howled its triumph. Gore spattered as the human exploded.

In the battle's lull, Raziel's keen ears caught the sounds of combat, further off, and the keen of the Reaver. _Kain._ He had wanted the younger vampire to stay back, but he should have known better—that was never his sire's way.

Time to change stratagems. Raziel pulled on the waiting magic in the fire materia embedded in the hilt of his sabre, summoning a firaga. The magical firestorm burst into being, unhampered by the alien world, and enveloped the clearing in an inferno. Using the fire as a barricade, Raziel turned and ran—sprinting away from the open trail, where horses would find it rougher going, and towards where he knew Kain was.

The last swordsman of the swordsmen harrying Kain finally fell -- not to the Reaver, but to the reflected edge of his own incautious strike against Kain's chaos armor. A bolt found the thinner place at the inside of the elbow of the armor, and Kain was forced to drop the sword. One hand now free, he called upon the pool of energy yet available to him and called forth his protective shell, a blue dome-like shield to repulse missiles and magic. The next quarrels bounced away, though they left cracks in the shield as their potent magics ate away at it. Left-handed, Kain pulled a great, spiked mace from its dimensional pocket.

Kain wasn't far—and thanks to the fire, Raziel's own pursuers had yet to overtake him. Leaping over a rotted log, Raziel summed up the situation in a glance—the two dead swordsmen, the crossbowmen holding Kain at bay, Kain himself behind his shield—and without pausing leaped. The bowman nearest him, in his lighter armor, never stood a chance against the sabre that punched through him from behind. Raziel kicked the convulsing man off his blade, then dodged, diving and rolling as crossbow bolts sizzled through the air.

Kain never even saw the other vampire coming. One moment he was facing down a pair of bowmen, the next moment one of them was screaming, blood bright and beautiful at the corner of its mouth, as the point of a saber emerged through the man's chest. Kain spared a brief snarl -- that had been his prey! -- and then lunged at the second hunter. The heavy spiked mace broke through the crossbow as the instrument was brought up to block, sundering it, and Kain caught the man's head on the backswing.

Howling in pain and fury, something crashed through the underbrush, and for a moment Kain thought it some demon. But it was armored, and Kain realized it was the Sarafan mastiff, maddened and fur aflame. The animal leapt for the pair of them, and Kain shouted, trying to bring up his bolt-pierced arm to summon a telekinetic bolt.

One advantage Raziel had that Kain did not, was that he was well used to fighting battles at his sire's side. At Kain's shout, he dropped and spun on his attacker without hesitation. Even that was almost too late, however—pain and fury had made the hound faster and more vicious than most would believe, and those jaws snagged on one folded wing, clamping down and tearing at the upthrust bony spar. Raziel could not prevent a cry of pain—the bone did not break in the dog's jaws, but flesh ripped and tore nonetheless as the dog landed, jaws still locked and dragging his wing down with it.

Kain snarled as he let fly the bolt, but his aim and the angle were both poor, and the blast only tangentially struck the dog. Kain dropped both his shield and his mace, needing his hand and his mind free. At the speed of thought, Kain locked into the scrap of soul the animal possessed and ripped it free. The hound crumpled, jaws still locked, and Kain crouched swiftly, reaching for the thing's head and the trailing edge of Raziel's wing.

Even the distractions of pitched battle could not suppress Raziel's instinctive flinch backwards. The dog's jaws were still clamped shut however, even in death, and he only tore his wing further at the movement, hissing in pain. Furthermore, the stubborn corpse was not the only thing they had to contend with ... from behind came the sound of hoofbeats as Raziel's own two pursuers closed in.

Prying the hound's teeth from the elder's wing took Kain a moment -- the jaws were locked in death, and were massively muscled. The crackle and stink of burning fur made for their own distractions, and the quarrel through Kain's elbow, plus the bright sun overhead, did Kain's strength no favors. Finally, he was forced to summon an edged dagger and cut through the joint of the beast's jaw. Kain pried the mastiff's maw apart, freeing the torn membrane. He started to run his hand along the wingbone, checking for deeper damage, and suddenly realized he was hearing hoofbeats through the chaos. And looked up in time to find a pair of horsemen, their mounts white-eyed with panic, bearing down.

No time now to lead the horsemen into the gully, despite what Raziel had intended. Free of the dog's corpse, Raziel ignored the minor wounds those jaws had inflicted, wheeling and placing himself between the fledgling—between *Kain*—and the Sarafan knights. The one in the lead had managed to get his lance set before his charge, and was bearing straight down on them, determined to impale one or more of his quarry. Snarling, Raziel did not run, but faced down that lance with a determination that seemed borne of madness.

The knight never faltered in his charge—but Raziel wheeled at the last second, dropping his sabre, taloned hands snapping out and wrapping around the shaft of the lance intended to impale him. With a hoarse shout, he heaved, stabbing the point of it into the dirt and unhorsing the knight in a clatter of metal and dust all in one swift stroke.

The elder vampire was a blur as he moved, but Kain saw him place himself in the path of the lance. Kain scrabbled backwards for his mace, hand closing on it, certain he'd be too late -- and then with strength and speed such as Kain had never even witnessed, Raziel unseated the first knight. The second could not slow as his companion crashed to the earth, and his horse trampled over the fallen Sarafan's prone form.

Kain surged up, mace in hand. The second knight flung his weighted net and ripped his sword from its sheath, even as his mount stumbled. Kain caught the worse of the blessed network upon the mace, entangling the weapon, the rest of the burning cables falling across his armor and exposed skin.

With the first knight prone and showing no signs of rising once more, Raziel turned to the last. Growling as the blessed net caught Kain in its scorching strands, Raziel used what was already to hand. With a heave, he swung the lance, using it as an improvised club, talons digging deep into the ironwood as he caught both horse and rider broadside with the butt end. The horse staggered, and the knight almost dropped his sword as he listed crazily in the saddle under the force of the blow.

Twisting the mace to entangle the net even further, Kain wrenched back on the weapon. The net was affixed upon a rope to the Knight's saddle pommel -- dragging a captive at speed had ever been a favored Sarafan tactic. Had it been the dark of night, Kain would have had the strength to tumble the horse entirely over. As it was, the saddle's girth leather broke. Knight and saddle both were dragged from the panicked horse. The animal, free of its tack and rider, fled. The man groaned on the ground, stunned.

Kain released mace and net, and backed away until he could stoop to retrieve the Reaver.

The lance, now battered and splintered, was cast aside as Raziel also straightened. Retrieving his sabre, he approached the first fallen knight with caution. The man was still alive—though his breathing was ragged, and from the scent of blood, would likely not live out the day. He struggled to rise as Raziel approached, but between his mangled armor and his own injuries, could not manage it.

"You ... unholy f-filth!" he spat as Raziel came into view.

"Ah. I am glad Nosgoth still knows how to properly welcome my return," Raziel said dryly, surveying his handiwork. He laid the sabre to one side, and knelt, grabbing the man by the edge of his breastplate. "I find I have worked up somewhat of an appetite. It seems only fitting that you assuage it." With practiced ease, he wrenched the man's head back, ignoring his feeble struggles, and bit down, drinking deeply.

Kain found the second knight some distance away, swearing as he tried to rise. _I'd appreciate it if you didn't render this one into giblets,_ Kain thought sternly at the Reaver as, one-handed, he plunged the blade into the man's chest.

The Reaver, keening, did exactly as it always had. Kain sighed a little in annoyance as he wiped his face clean of the resultant shower of gore, wincing at the healing cross-hatch of burns from the net. He affixed the humming blade to his back once more and stalked towards the last human -- the crossbowman, rendered unconscious by Kain's mace. Kain couldn't help glancing over at Raziel. The elder had almost entirely escaped injury, and though his face was buried in the knight's throat, his eyes were open and bright with the fierce thrill of battle and feeding.

Kain couldn't prevent the upturn to his lips as he knelt beside the bowman and indulged himself, savoring the hot throb of _real_ blood once more. They'd annihilated not one, but a pair of seasoned Sarafan hunting squads, in full daylight, and taken relatively little hurt. Compared to years of hazard-fraught survival, this was... glorious.

The knight's blood was rich, spiced with the leftover fury and fear of battle and the knowledge of the man's own impending death. Raziel drank it with utmost pleasure, feeling it bring new life to his limbs, healing the minor wounds he had gained in battle. Once done, he cast the empty shell aside, and sheathed his sabre after wiping it upon the man's cloak.

Watching as Kain took his fill, Raziel felt the hungry edge that had hummed ignored at the back of his senses gone. The Reaver had also fed, he saw ... and he could not help but wonder if that somehow contributed to his sudden ease. After a moment, he shook his head. There was no point in being fanciful. The sheer glory of hunting and feasting upon *real* blood, not the watery stuff of placeholders, was reason enough for his satisfaction.

Kain finally drew back as the font emptied. He dragged the back of his hand across his lips, hissed a little in irritation as he was reminded of the quarrels that still bristled where they'd pierced his armor. He set about working the one in his arm free -- finally settled for unbuckling the entire bracer and jamming the barbed head of the bolt through the other side of the wound, then snapping it off.

"This," Kain admitted, looking about the carnage with satisfaction, "was magnificently executed." He wasn't at all certain how the elder would interpret Kain's admiration, but nor could he entirely contain his pleasure at the success of the venture. Kain had long since learned better than to assault Sarafan squads in daylight -- they were effective hunters for a reason, after all. But Raziel was, perhaps literally, a small army unto himself. With him, Kain could capture one of the smaller city states, and thence... Kain let out his breath and glanced away, quashing the machinations ruthlessly.

"A bit more sloppy in execution than I would have preferred," Raziel disagreed mildly, "But adequate. Needs must as the devil drives, after all." Especially given that this Kain was not familiar with his favored tactics the way he was Kain's. He looked the younger vampire over, noting damaged armor. "You are healing?" They might need to seek cover, at least until Kain was fully recovered.

"I am," Kain maintained, snapping the last of the bolts from where they'd lodged in the plates along his back and side. This armor would repair itself in time, albeit more slowly than the wraith armor at night. "Do you intend to seek the spirit forge, west of Nachtholm Cove?" He wasn't sure what locations would be of interest to Raziel, nor whether the elder intended to travel during the day. If he did, then Kain surely could as well.

"I had not intended to, no." Raziel tilted his head. "You wish to head there instead of the Pillars?" Despite Kain's bold words, Raziel could see the signs of weakness he tried to hide, and the enervation caused by the sun's grasp. He lifted his face to the sky, dappled through the overhanging leaves. He could make it to the Pillars in less than a day's travel, if he flew—but it was obvious Kain did not have the strength to keep up, even in bat form. Which in and of itself was a most disturbing prospect—he was used to Kain as a protector, a bulwark of strength. Not something as fragile as this.

Kain watched... something cross the other's features. His eyes narrowed. Consideringly, he kicked over the human bowman's corpse, and removed its purse and a dagger which he thought might be fine enough to be of some use, while he thought.

It seemed likely that Raziel played as vital a role in history as did the Reaver. Clearly, their paths converged, in some undetermined manner. Or rather -- their paths were meant to converge in time; the Powers' meddling could alter that. And currently, the Powers held both Kain's leash and Raziel's. Until Kain dealt with that binding, it was unlikely he could utilize Raziel in a more meaningful fashion. "Not instead, no," Kain said. "How much time do you imagine we have?"

"Hard to say. The Powers could yank our leash after only a few days, or they could wait until we tire of our 'vacation'." Raziel gave him a straightforward look. "More importantly, how far are you able to travel without stopping to hunt? Any diversions will need to take that into account." He did not mention his own needs, knowing that he could sustain himself much longer than the relatively-young Kain on the same amount of blood, circumstances permitting.

Kain hissed a little in irritation. He wanted to keep an eye on Raziel's movements -- what was the elder planning in this era? Raziel surely wanted to watch Kain as well -- to ensure that he did not fall in battle and thereby perhaps drag the both of them back to Haven, if nothing else. Would admitting weakness force Raziel to remain nearby? And even if so, could Kain stand to play such a distasteful card, even if it were nothing but truth? "What exactly is your interest in the Pillars," he stalled.

Raziel gave him a sardonic look. "My reasons are the same for the Pillars as they are for any other place." He looked away, back out at the verdant forest that surrounded them. "For now, at least, I am merely treading the paths of memory. It has been ... a great while since I have been able to see Nosgoth thus." A thousand years and more in one direction, or a blink of a timeless eye in the other.

Kain watched Raziel closely, was reminded of his own awe, his own... yearning for home. If Raziel were planning some greater machination, if that look was a ruse... it was a markedly good one. Kain looked to the mountains, determining his location, recalling his passage through these plains years before. He licked a trickle of blood from the back of his hand. The liquid was his own; he wasn't certain how he'd been injured there.

There was a blood fountain nearby, mostly crumbled to ruin now. It had been built, Kain thought, by Janos' race, and was populated with voices that... whispered in his mind. Not only would that place provide shelter until nightfall, but the spirits' reaction to Raziel could tell Kain something. "Come," he said finally. "I know of a place which may interest you."

Raziel arched an eyebrow at him, but made no protest. After all, one place was as good as another, was it not. He still had not become accustomed to the thrill of breathing clean air, untainted by machinery, or the life that sprang all around them. Before it had always been tainted, or unnoticeable against the relentless drive of his vengeance. Now ...

"Very well, then. Lead on," Raziel said finally. Was Kain going to chance the daylight air, or did he plan to stay afoot?

The cave was not far, though the passing of seasons had cloaked its entrance and transformed the vegetation around it. Kain lead the way up into the forest, following a deeply overgrown track, ancient paving stones just showing through the thick spring growth. The way terminated at a deeply cut gorge -- Kain pointed out a prominent ridge on the far side, near a lightning-blasted pine, and then made the short flight to the landmark in batform.

By the time Kain located the narrow entrance, he was making a conscious effort to avoid revealing exhaustion. The dimness, and the abrupt drop in temperature, were both a relief. Massive roots choked the already-narrow passage for the first few dozen meters, and then the walls of the tunnel widened, heavy brickwork covered with faintly glowing crystals and sigils Kain still could not decipher. Kain could sense the faint whispers of the spirits within. They seemed... agitated.

A heavy stone, man-sized, blocked the last turn of the passage. Kain set his shoulder against it.

As the progressed, Raziel could feel Kain's growing weariness, as well as his sire's determination not to show it. It was that determination that kept him following silently, and offering no help with the stone block, even though he knew he could have moved it with an easy shove. Kain's pride, whether as fledgling or elder, was always an unpredictable and chancy thing, and he did not want to prick it for no good cause.

Instead he turned his attention to the symbols engraved upon the walls, and the shape of the ruins as Kain finally succeeded and they entered the stone chamber. It seemed superficially similar to the spirit forges in form, at least, if not function, with graceful and airy vaults overhead, meant for winged creatures—and even half-ruined, the air held traces of power. It was not a ... comfortable place, precisely, but neither was it inimical to their kind.

With the first step into the chamber, the soft voices broke over Kain in a discordant weave. Years before, they'd invited him to drink from the pool at the base of skull-like carvings near the center of the chamber. Though cracked in places, that fountain was filling rapidly with a resurgent flow of thick crimson liquid which seemed like blood but was... not. Or not quite. And from the confusion of voices, Kain could make out but one word. "Messiah," Kain breathed, lips just forming the sound.

The power here ... was no longer quiescent. It stirred at their entrance, and Raziel felt the chilly touch of the ghostly dead as they roused, whispering. He tilted his head back, a few strands of hair stirring in the invisible breeze, and his eyes seemed oddly blind as he listened.

_"... redeemer and destroyer ...." _

The ghosts did not reveal themselves further, or offer them harm, for which Raziel was grateful. He did not know for sure if the Underworld was now barred to him or not—and he was afraid of what would happen should he discard his new body in order to enter it.

Kain leaned back against an engraved wall, arms folded across his chest, watching as Raziel was touched by a faint wind he could not feel. The Reaver, pressed between his armor and the stones, roused a little, humming interest for a moment, then abating. Did this mean Raziel had far more central a place in history than Kain had imagined? Kain was silent for a time, trying to work through the possibilities, the reverberations across the timestream. "Gaara spoke to me regarding yourself and the Reaver, Raziel," he said at last.

_"...come, drink from us...." _

"Did he?" Raziel's answer was distracted as he unbuckled his baldric and let it and his sabre fall to the ground. He stepped forward, running a taloned hand over the ledge of the fountain, and the carved symbols on it. "And what did he reveal to you?" There was no surprise in the question, only a kind of waiting patience.

"Very little," Kain admitted. "He was... concerned that you would not return to Haven in the same form in which you departed." He watched as Raziel touched upon the symbols around the edge of the pool, and could not help stepping forward as realization came upon him like a bolt. The sigils, so common in these ancient places and so confounding, had been grooved by three-fingered hands. Raziel's talons fit into the marks precisely. "Your destiny and the Reaver's converge, do they not?"

"They do," Raziel affirmed simply. He said nothing more, only glanced briefly at the Reaver's hilt rising over Kain's shoulder, then turned his back on it once more. Kneeling at the pool's edge, he trailed a talon through the dark red liquid, wondering at it. It was like the smaller cauldrons found in the keeps of the Empire, with spelled blood for the hungry vampire—but on a scale even he had never imagined. And the scent—not just bloodsmell, but magic rose potently from the surface, tingling through the chitinous armor of his talon-tips.

"Gaara warned me to keep the Reaver from you." Not out of any concern that Raziel would wield the blade, Kain was certain. He let his gaze drift upwards, past finely carved archways -- shallow rooms and galleys hewed into the living stone and inaccessible for an earthbound creature, or one of merely mortal strength. "You have a staunch ally in him, I think." Perhaps a misguided one, but stalwart nevertheless.

"Yes," Raziel said quietly. Cupping a hand in the pool, he brought it to his lips, and tasted the liquid. It was amazingly good—neither stale nor dead, but fresh, living blood, as impossible as that seemed. Licking at the smears that still adorned his palm after he was finished, Raziel added, "He and I have found ... a great deal of commonality. He is a most unique creature, unlike any other I have met." Which was high praise, coming from someone who had lived as long as Raziel had.

Kain circled slowly, leaving footprints in the dust behind as he moved to the rim of the pool. The blood within would grant Kain no further increase in strength; its magic, for him, was spent. He watched Raziel drink.

Kain listened for the murmur of voices as he unbuckled one bracer. The spirits had once cautioned him against greed when he'd partaken too much of the fount. But the ghosts had faded beyond his hearing. Kain dipped his hand into the thick liquid, coating it past the wrist. And offered the cupped palmful to Raziel. "Are you the Reaver?"

Raziel had been waiting for the question, ever since Kain first brought up what he knew. But now that it was here—he still hesitated. If he revealed the truth, would this young, impetuous Kain see it only as an opportunity? Try to imbue the Reaver here and now, before its time?

"A simple question, with a complex answer," he murmured, watching the ripples move across the puddled liquid in Kain's hand. He did not reject the offer—but he did not move to accept it either. "In what sense do you mean?"

Kain considered the prevarication. "You are to become the blade, are you not?" Gaara's concern over 'form' made sense then. Just as Kain could alter his shape, so to would Raziel -- by his own free will, if Gaara was to be believed. But unlike Kain's transformations, Raziel's would not be so easily undone. Not if the Reaver upon Kain's back, and its apparent mindlessness, were any indication.

"No. The blade long predates my existence. But I am destined for it, all the same," Raziel answered reluctantly. He hesitated, then reached out. Cupping Kain's hand in his own, he bowed his head before his sire, and drank the cupped blood from his palm, his lips brushing the pale skin.

If he told Kain now—did that mean that his sire—*his* Kain—knew all along? No—he still had the memory of Kain's honest surprise and denial, the moment that he realized what their intertwined destinies had brought them to. He held on to that as if it were a lifeline. If Kain was ignorant *then*—then it did not matter what Raziel revealed *now*.

For a moment he kept his head bowed, then lifted it, meeting Kain's eyes. "My soul—is what completes the blade, and brings it power. The Reaver ... is my destiny, and my prison."

Kain tensed, eyes wide.

He pulled his hand from Raziel's, the faint grooves and ridges crossing the underside of Raziel's talons catching at the back of his own hand. He went for the hilt of the Reaver.

And then froze, fingers just touching the metal. The lingering echo of power left on his skin, where Raziel's lips had touched the palm of his hand, was exactly the same as....

Kain let out a slow breath, and sank quietly to his knees beside Raziel, just at the edge of the pool. Cautiously, he allowed his hand to drop. "You are already entrapped within the Reaver," he said, suddenly quite certain.

Raziel had crouched low as soon as Kain had gone for the Reaver's hilt, the wraithblade partially rousing around his arm, small sparks of blue-white light flickering out around his clenched fist. For a moment he stayed frozen even as Kain did, watching his sire tensely ... feeling history repeat itself once more.

He did not move or retreat as Kain approached once more. Face expressionless, he said, "Yes. Partially, at least. I have a ... convoluted destiny, to say the least." A bitter ghost of a smile quirked the edges of his mouth, then was gone.

Kain settled back on his heels, thinking. If Raziel chose his fate, he must have done so in Kain's past -- or more precisely, the Reaver's past. But according to Raziel, he would not even be born as a vampire until several hundred years in Kain's future. "A... timestreaming event?" Kain asked, faintly dismayed. Kain's single timetravel experience had... complicated an already convoluted matter rather extensively.

Relaxing minutely as Kain showed no further signs of aggression, Raziel rose from his crouch. Glancing down at the pool, he went to sit on an uncrumbled portion of the ledge around it, propping forearms upon his knees and letting talons dangle loosely in an attitude of resignation. "Several timestreaming events, a myriad of prophecies and shadowed players, and more. Even now I may be playing dice with the whole chain of events in telling you as much as I have. But since the Powers have meddled, it seems it has become unavoidable—and my sole consolation is that it apparently takes more than a slip of the tongue to unwind the skein of history."

Too deep in thought to concern himself much with any attempt at dominance, Kain settled on the ground, leaning back against the shin-high ledge around the pool. He considered Gaara's concern. "If you are already within the Reaver, then the blade should currently present you no hazard." Surely a fundamental paradox would be caused if the Reaver were to... what? Consume itself? Yet -- what if something happened to... 'empty' the Reaver? Would it then... Kain shook his head minutely, dismissing the fruitless line of contemplation.

Kain turned his attention to Raziel himself, as he was now. "Perhaps, due to the Powers' meddling, you are no longer within the timestream at all," Kain said. Ancient scrolls spoke of being 'expelled' from the timestream as if it were an event most sincerely to be avoided. In Kain's opinion, entrapment by the Powers was likewise -- perhaps Haven was the fate feared by the Ancients.

"For your sake and that of Nosgoth, I hope that you are wrong. For if they have, then they have sealed Nosgoth's demise," Raziel said harshly. "You asked me before if any cure could be found for the taint within you and Nosgoth. There is, and the key is the Reaver." He shook his head. "If it were to become otherwise—an empty shell of a sword will avail you little, I fear."

Kain nodded thoughtfully. "The repercussions of the Powers' abduction of yourself have not yet touched this time. Or at least they have not touched myself and this era's Reaver." And if the Reaver were the key, then Kain had to discover how to use it -- in time. It was... a bare glimmer of a chance. Kain let his gaze rest upon Raziel. "The Powers seized you after victory was won? After you departed the blade?"

"No. They did not." Raziel's gaze slid up to the Reaver's hilt, away from Kain's face. "The Reaver you bear now ... only holds a portion of its true power. It will have to travel much further, as will you, and I—or more properly, my earlier self—before we come full circle and you gain the power you need in your endeavors. You and your Reaver are unaffected by my freedom, because I do not yet exist. At least—not as I am now."   
Kain was silent for a long minute, trying to work through Raziel's meanings. Each avenue of consideration lead to a seeming paradox -- how could Raziel be within the blade, and in Haven, and not yet existent, and...

Kain understood vaguely that he was attempting to adhere to linear temporal logic, and that linearity might be wholly inadequate in this situation. But two things were clear enough. The first was that Raziel could not remain in Haven indefinitely, not unless the Powers' fatuous tale of world-rebuilding was in verity, and that had yet to be determined. The fact that Raziel seemed little tempted to hide away from his fate in Haven spoke something most... extraordinary about the elder.

The second... Kain stood slowly, and walked to stand before Raziel. "Thank you," said Kain, meeting Raziel's eyes clearly. For the Reaver and this chance at salvation were both, then, gifts -- they could be nothing else.

Raziel blinked up at him, held by that intent gaze. For a moment, it did not matter that this Kain was a fledgling, or that history might prove traitor to them both. It was still his sire standing before him—and those words were more than he had ever hoped to hear from Kain.

"It was ... all I could do. But—you are welcome."

Kain nodded and sat on the other end of the uncrumbled ledge, not quite a bodylength from Raziel. It was, come to think of it, a wonder that one of Kain's fledglings would find this solution -- would find Raziel. Or rather, had found Raziel? The pathways of time could be so twisted. But it pleased Kain very much to know that some neonate of his would be perceptive and daring on such a level.

That fledgling would be a worthy legacy indeed.

Kain looked up at the blue-lit archways above. If one chance at salvation existed, then surely others did too. There had to be solutions that did not require Raziel's entrapment, or perhaps there existed some way to shorten the span of time the elder would spend contained. The thought of being separated from Raziel for long was curiously... discomforting. Kain would... think on it. But in any case -- "Winning freedom from Haven, then, is more vital than I'd thought, in the very likely case that the Powers' tale is not entirely true nor complete." Specifically, winning Raziel's freedom, as well as his own.

Yet moving overtly against the Powers was presently unlikely to succeed, and would almost certainly result in the curtailment of these 'vacations.' That meant less obtrusive methods were needed, at least at first. And in this, the other Chosen could potentially be of use.

"At the very least, ascertaining the Powers true motives and ability is critical," Raziel said slowly. "If by some chance they are speaking the truth about our capture, and have only the noblest motives ... Nosgoth is too fragile for me to sabotage their efforts for something as petty as my own freedom. But of all the powers I have encountered, none of them—save perhaps one—were ever what they claimed to be, and most had nothing but their own appetites in mind."

Kain considered. If the Powers did speak truth... then Kain's will would likely align with theirs. But if they did not... he nodded. "More information is needed. I had some success with Count D regarding the CDC." Kain recounted the majority of his encounter with the Kami. He took care to warn of the deity's... alluring presence. Then he paused, tonguing a fang. "Interestingly, a priest of your acquaintance seemed somewhat interested in alliance." Well, before he'd shot Kain, anyway. "I take it he'd insulted you previously?"

There could only be one priest that Kain was talking about, and at the mention of Sanzo, Raziel's face turned hard. Stripped of any remnant softness, his voice was deadly quiet. "More than once, yes. I offered him mercy—even the beginnings of an alliance. He spurned it. Then he bound and tortured me for his own pleasure, before another stepped in."

Kain's claws tightened briefly on the cool, cracked marble. A pity he'd not known of that event before meeting the priest. "It is a shame you could not kill him," Kain said, for execution would be his own response of choice to such an insult. "The restrictions of Haven are inconvenient, to say the least."

"To say the least," Raziel echoed in agreement. "I assure you, under most circumstances I am not in a habit of leaving enemies at my back." That Sanzo was accounted one of those enemies was quite plain. "Unfortunately, Haven has stripped me of other options. No doubt the priest will attempt some retaliatory strike. I have already made preparations for such an event."

Kain trailed the tips of his nails across the surface of the blood pool. "Within the confines of Haven's allowances, is your vengeance satisfied?" Kain would understand perfectly well if it were not; Sanzo's insult had been dire. An ally's betrayal could be nearly as wounding as a liege's.

"For the moment. I have taken partial payment of his debt. As for the rest ... we shall see. I can be patient, and see what circumstances bring. He has been warned; if he attacks you again, he can expect my vengeance. We will see if he has the intelligence to heed it." Raziel wondered if Kain would take offense at his presumption.

Kain glanced up. "I am perfectly capable of extracting my own vengeance," he stated, uncertain whether to be amused or offended. Sanzo was a potent priest indeed, but -- "Under normal circumstances, I would lure him into misstep by using the healer Amberdrake, to whom Sanzo appears to owe allegiance. Unfortunately, I find myself in debt to the healer twice over. When he first encountered me, I was injured, and mistook him for prey." Kain disliked admitting to such a serious tactical error, but the event did, perhaps, clarify the present situation somewhat.

"I see. And that spurred the priest's attack upon you?" Not that it made Sanzo's actions any more forgivable in Raziel's eyes. Whether Kain was capable of defending himself or not, Raziel was still not about to suffer creatures such as the priest laying hands upon him.

"I presume so, yes, though I'd believed the matter previously settled," said Kain. That assumption too had been a mistake; Kain should have made certain of Amberdrake's allies and intentions. In effect, Kain had left enemies of unknown power and number at his back. But he would learn from this mistake, would take care not to repeat it. In the meantime -- "To complicate the issue, I -- we -- may need the priest in the future; either his compliance or his non-interference." Any plans Kain might make could be interrupted if the powerful priest chose to harry him.

And at the same time... the thought of vengeance unsated left a sour burn in Kain's mouth. What an absurd situation.

"Why?" Raziel asked. No doubt Kain had reasons for his belief in the priest's importance. Whether or not Raziel shared them remained to be seen.

Kain raised an eyebrow. "You can maneuver unhindered whilst the priest yapps at your heels? 'Twould be better to bring him to heel, instead." In truth it would be better simply to slay him, but if that were no option... Kain thought a moment. "Unless... did you consider crippling him?"

"I did. I may still, if he continues on his crusade," Raziel said evenly. "The priest is an irritant, but thus far he has few allies and only some power. His own attitudes seem to ensure it stays that way; which means he is a threat that can be mitigated. So long as he does not start any witch-hunts among the Chosen, that is." While not in Gaara's league, Raziel made it his business to know his enemies.

Kain nodded. Wise, then -- if it were necessary to maim the human, best cut him from the pack first. Kain wished to see the rise of no new Sarafan order among Haven's chosen. He would be careful to do nothing to upset the status quo negatively. And yet... the thought of leaving a potentially valuable tool to molder... "Did you feel that torture was an effective solution, then?" If Raziel felt the matter satisfactorily concluded, perhaps Kain could swallow his own need for retribution. For the time being.

"Unfortunately, while it gave me a certain amount of satisfaction, I doubt the priest has learned his lesson. Even without regarding the interruption—the man has the eyes of a fanatic. If he gets it into his head to obstruct us, I see little recourse other than death or a more ... thorough and permanent maiming." Raziel spoke of the possibility as easily as a farmer would about killing a piece of errant livestock. He took little pleasure in torture, but it had its uses.

Kain enjoyed torture thoroughly -- both for its appeal to his sadistic tendencies and for its usefulness -- when it was done correctly. He thought it likely, though, that a being of Raziel's age would be quite adept at torment. But if Sanzo did not respond adequately to pain... there were, of course, a few other ways to break a man. Kain might attempt one of them, if the opportunity presented itself. Kain licked the enchanted blood off the tips of his fingers. "By whom were you interrupted?" he queried.

"Another Chosen—Muraki." Raziel shrugged, his tone dismissive. "He was quite insistent that my crippling of the priest would spark a Chosen war against vampires. I do not necessarily agree, but I had made my point adequately—for the moment, at least."

Kain considered, then finally nodded. "Perhaps he was right -- though it was a shame to be forced to give up your prey." Kain paused, then glanced over at Raziel, the corner of his mouth turning up wryly. "Regardless of your prior cause for vengeance, I do appreciate the... timing of your intervention."

Raziel inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Even if you were not—who you are, and from Nosgoth, I would have been inclined to intervene, regardless. I have little love for those who attack vampires of any stripe." Ironic, that. He dabbled a talon-tip in the bloody waters of the font, and tasted it thoughtfully. "So from here, we go to the Pillars. If we wait until nightfall, we should be able to fly unseen." The casual suggestion masked Raziel's true desire—he wanted to feel the wind of Nosgoth's sky under his wings. To reclaim another lost opportunity before it was once again snatched away.

Kain considered the feel of the air. Even here, deeply sheltered by stone, he could feel the sun above. "Nightfall would be best, yes," he agreed, a little grateful not to fly during the day. The sun could beat upon the thin wings of his bats quite cruelly. It was... an unconditional marvel, that Raziel did not feel the sun's malice. Or at least, the elder vampire was adept at concealing that particular weakness. "In two hours, I think?"

Consulting his own time-sense, which had become more haphazard now that his power did not wax or wane so obviously with the sun, but was still serviceable, Raziel nodded. "Or close enough to it as makes no difference. " He shifted, making himself more comfortable. "This is a decent place to rest until then. These havens—they must have been invaluable. How did you come upon them?" And apparently had lasted for centuries—yet had dried up before Raziel had ever been made. Why? Another symptom of Kain's refusal to sacrifice himself for the Pillars?

Kain glanced up at the strange and beautiful carvings above. Raziel's choice of the past tense... drove home the temporal strangeness of all this. "Curiosity drew me to these places, by and large. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, scattered everywhere -- though the hunters destroy them when they can." When they found them. That was part of the reason Kain drew such great boulders over the entrances. Even still, Kain would occasionally come across caverns once filled with the most delicate of carvings, only to find them smashed and defiled. He did not know why Moebius' slayers would take such exception to this brand of architecture. "Only a handful have these bloodpools, and some are little more than niches in cliff faces. In many, beasts or undead have found residence."

Kain looked back at the Elder, and then decided. From a portal, he pulled one of the many strange objects he'd found in places like this, and handed it over. The carving was small, entirely of crackled blue lapis, and most of the features were worn smooth by water and time. But it seemed to depict a slender, winged man. After the pillars, he'd take Raziel to some of the places he'd found. "I think such havens may have been built by the Ancients. There is one entire underground city, accessible only under the full moon..."

Kain spoke of the carvings he'd found, the ancient scrolls no existent scholar knew how to read. He didn't reveal everything by far, but some parts of the puzzle of this world were so strange, so... completely beyond his current understanding, and so beautiful, he thought it no harm to share them.

By nightfall, they were on the wing.


	4. Praemonitus, Pramunitus - Forewarned, forearmed

Flying was different with Raziel in the air.   
    
Kain's batform typically fluttered relatively close to the ground, where he could watch the landscape and make certain the bats hadn't lost their way.  Raziel, once airborne, shot up into the cool air, catching currents and jetstreams and just... cavorting.  Just as before, Raziel was difficult to detect by any normal means, but Kain could always sense that aura, the sheer age of him, burning bright and black as a dark sun rising.     
    
Abandoning the ground, Kain... followed.  Not as fast, not nearly as liberated, but free for the first time to simply enjoy the sensations of flying as he tracked the elder.  

But at last the pillars came in sight, and Kain broke off, feeling the small bats beginning to weary with the rapid pace.  He fluttered down so a place just south of the pillars, relieved to find he'd lost none of his bats in the wild flight.  Kain reformed in time to watch Raziel land with a great flurry of backwinging, white membrane snapping hard into the air as he elegantly touched down.   Clearly showing off, Kain thought, the corner of his mouth twisting up as he started forward, craning his neck up at the height of the pillars.  "It was late winter when I was abducted, so..."

With a low rumble, the very earth began to shake.     
    
Kain dropped to a crouch, reaching for the Reaver, even as he knew it would do him no good.  An earthquake?  Here?  He'd never even heard of...   
    
Behind him, that aura, that black sun -- blinked out.     
    
"Raziel?" Kain gasped, turning.

The attack had been entirely unexpected. Raziel had just barely touched ground when the earth had begun to shake; then it opened beneath his feet, a huge gaping gash. His wings were still half-unfurled from landing, and he instinctively tried to fly upwards, to break his fall, but there was no room—one wing banged against the wall of the crevasse, falling dirt and stone fouled the other, and his scrabbling talons could find no purchase. Rebounding from one wall, he hit another rock with a bone-crunching suddenness. The pain made his vision white out, and it was in that moment that he felt something—something immensely ancient, and powerful—*yank* at him.

There was an instant of tearing agony, a sensation of being peeled from his own skin, inch by inch—and then he was falling again, further than any crevasse, through a blue-lit and twisted landscape, until he finally landed in a crumpled heap upon an unforgiving stone surface. For a moment he could do nothing, save shudder through the last aftershocks of agony, trying to blink the white haze from his sight. He felt cold, stiff—and he hurt as if every last fibre and nerve was exposed.

**Raziel. **  
    
It was a voice out of the maddest of lucid dreams, a reverberation that had never even courted sanity.     
    
This realm was deep indeed.  The network of tunnels was torturous and winding, descending in places to pierce the heart of the world.  But here... here the chamber was wider, a great hollowed scoop etched beneath the pillars' great seal.  Thick blue light cloaked every surface, the walls and stones twisted into non-Euclidian unreality.  Mist gathered in places.  Though no physical sound could be heard, the caverns were not silent; half-heard whispers and cries nibbled at the corners of the mind, shapes flitted at the edge of awareness.

And this chamber... was wreathed with pulsing flesh.  Tentacles thick as a man was tall, hourglass eyes even larger that watched and blinked and waited.     
    
**Assassin; twice-failed. **

That voice.

Raziel knew that voice—deep enough to vibrate along his bones, slow and ineffably smug. He despised it.

He lifted his head—and saw what he had feared. The Elder God, its coils wrapped everywhere, and himself—reduced. Reduced back to that shell of his former self—his wraithly form, his wings, gone. It was that last loss more than any other that made him want to howl in grief and rage. His talons curled inward, scraping the rock on which he lay, nothing but bone and sinew.

He pushed himself upward, feeling the cold ache of the unliving shell into which he had been thrust, the dull grinding pain of bone upon bone, unshielded by flesh. He lifted his face defiantly as he straightened. "I am no longer your tool, creature. And if you think this will persuade me otherwise, you are sorely mistaken!" Beneath the defiance, however, was fear.

**You will always be my implement, Raziel, my Soul Reaver.  You are mine eternally, in this dimension and all others. **  
    
Great hourglass eyes blinked and flicked, thick writhing tentacles curling, coiling.  Grasping limbs vanished through the stone far above, prying into the subterranean prayer grottoes above.  Even here, when momentarily visible past the massive coils, the pillars seemed cracked and weathered.

"You are no more eternal than I am," Raziel fired back, angry at this—*thing's* presumption. "You set me on the path to kill Kain, claiming it was for the good of Nosgoth—but you have been the canker at its heart all along!" The lifeless and tattered flaps of skin at his back floated upon invisible currents of air, and the wraithblade's glow was visible and crackling angrily upon his arm.

**Do not try my patience, Raziel.  I will unmake you as easily now as ever -- should I become so inclined. I am eternally present - here and everywhere, now and always.  In every world, on every plane, I am the origin and the end.     
    
Your pitiful rebellion is ended.  You have but one task to fulfill, my servant.  To that purpose, I orchestrated your captivity and your release.  You and Kain have been brought together for one reason only, yet time and again you stay your hand, lacking the courage and the strength to fulfill the act.   
    
You know the wasteland wrought by the tyrant's hand.  You know Nosgoth's fate, sacrificed on the altar of Kain's pride.  And now your strength is immaterial.  I have placed the despoiler in the palm of your hand.**

"You have done nothing. This is the work of Powers outside your grasp, and all you can do is twist their actions to your purposes, just as you once twisted mine!" came Raziel's fierce reply. Even as he did so, he was scanning the boundaries of the world around him, looking past the cracked Pillars and twisted walls for the faint glow that might be his key to escape—a place where the living world and the Underworld touched, and through which he might escape this place. "You sent the Ancients into oblivion, despairing, all to feed your own bloated appetites. I will not let you do the same to Kain!"

**My reach has always been longer than you realize, my wayward child.  The Ancients knew their purpose and gave themselves to me.  Their destiny was fulfilled, and what of yours?  Raziel -- destroyer, devourer.  You gave yourself over to your only true enemy.  And now I manipulate universes to grant you one last chance at redemption.**

"And what chance is that, monster?" Raziel snapped with strained patience. "Even if I were inclined to do your bidding, to kill the Kain of this time will only create more Paradox, wiping my own self out of existence—and possibly Nosgoth as well. Even such as *you* cannot want that." He did not want to be here; did not want to be bantering with this so-called 'god' once more. It was too close to his memories of entrapment and starvation, and what if the Elder God decided to imprison its errant tool once more? Here there were no conveniently new-made corpses to use as an escape....

**So you enjoy your place among the destroyed, the used and the damned. Yes, Raziel, his destruction will spell your own. But this world's restoration depends upon the end of the vampires' parasitic curse. That, and no other, is your destiny, and it can be accomplished by one means alone. **

A roil of thick coils drew back, or perhaps the floor of the chamber itself elongated. A blue-green glow rose from the stone thus revealed.

**Your willfulness does you no credit, Raziel. You have embraced a serpent -- and you have mistaken the hands of the prime mover. My will prevented Kain from meeting you at the very moment required to entrap you within the Reaver, but I was not the original architect of his abduction. Go then, Raziel, and ask that degenerate the means of his arrival in Haven. **

The means of Kain's arrival? Did that mean the Powers did *not* have a hand in it? Raziel was not about to believe the Elder God was telling all the truth, not for a second ... but why let him go, otherwise, if revenge were its only motive? Keeping him imprisoned here would keep the Reaver from being fully imbued, and therefore a threat, after all ...

Eyes fixed upon that glowing font, blue-white energy spiraling into the air in the spot where the worlds of the dead and the living met, Raziel took a step—then another. When no tentacles came down to bar his way, he darted forward, towards his promised escape. The energies caressed him, taking away any vestiges of hunger as he crossed the verge, and he caught ahold them, twisting them about as he pulled himself once more towards the land of the living.

 

***

 

The Pillars' great meadow was riven.

Once carpeted with wild grasses and new growth of spring, the plain was now ruptured by deep chasms.  It was near the bottom of one of these, captured in a cleft betwixt two great jagged boulders, that Kain found Raziel's corpse.     
    
The body was whole, if somewhat the worse for wear.  And Kain thought that should mean the elder were simply... simply what?  He had no experience with the states of health of his kind, knew only that Vorador's maddened fledges had crumpled into ash when slain but was that true of ancients as well?  Yet that aura of potence had vanished, and Kain's blood upon the corpse's lips evoked no change at all.  

Raziel's... body was strangely light as Kain dragged it up to the remains of the meadow.  Fragile, for all the strength it had contained.  What did this mean?  What of the fate Raziel had told -- but the Reaver was whole.  Could the Powers be forced to restore Raziel, or would removing him from this world only...?   
    
Kain was not so distracted he did not notice the flash of light, a strange shockwave of force.  Snarling, furious, Kain brought the serpentine blade to hand and faced the apparition.  The demon.  "What did you do to him?"

Raziel shook his head, banishing the lingering disorientation as the warm, living air of Nosgoth wrapped around him—then spun to face his accuser. As he did so, he suddenly knew that he had not discarded his wraithly form as he had the Underworld—his flesh was still dead, stripped bare, his wings still nothing more than ruined scraps. In a flash of bitter humor, he recognized Kain—and knew his sire did not recognize the thing he had become.

And beyond Kain—was his body, his vampire body, lying upon the grass like an outworn set of clothing. He took a step forward, then stopped short as the Reaver swung to point in his direction. "Put your blade down, Kain," he snapped. "I have done nothing."

For all his changes in appearance, his voice at least was the same ...

The tip of the Reaver dipped.   
    
Kain had encountered exactly three auras of vampiric age before in his existence.  One of them, he'd known for less than a minute.  He'd been in Vorador's presence for perhaps a quarter of an hour.  Kain knew only one energy signature well -- but he'd made a certain study of that one, knew the feel of the charge that suffused it.  And while he could feel something from the apparition before him... it was not the same.  Similar, perhaps -- a good charade.   
   
With a swift gesture, Kain erected a shield -- not over himself, but over the body just behind.  It was a somewhat wavering defense: Kain had very rarely been inclined to shield anything other than himself, and the magic was unpracticed.   
    
Kain hissed his rage.  The demon had nearly had him.  "Save effected some trickery of sound -- but your aura is not his.  Tell me what you have done, and I will spare your miserable existence."

Kain's accusations were met with a low-voiced growl. "You cannot destroy me, the Elder God cannot destroy me, and he will not trick me into killing you out of hand, either, no matter how provoking you may be! Stand *down*, Kain, before I lose my patience!" Raziel shifted, talons flexing impotently at his sides at his sire's stubbornness. He had battled an elder Kain to a standstill, if not a victory, in this form. A fledgling would hardly prove any difficulty at all. His only fear was that Kain would take his body and teleport elsewhere.

"Everything can be destroyed," Kain growled, though -- a voice might be somehow magically manufactured, but a speech pattern was surely a more cagey effect to produce.  The rhythm of the words seemed... but how was the demon even speaking?  The creature's entire ribcage was exposed, the slender bones sheathed in raw blue muscle.  "What is your purpose here?" He demanded.

Raziel gave a bark of something far too harsh and bitter to be laughter. "My sole purpose at the moment is to regain my own body—if I even can." Had the Elder God condemned him to a renewed existence locked into this decayed housing of bone and sinew? He moved forward, white eyes blazing with determination.

"There is much going on here that you do not understand, Kain, nor do I have the time to explain it to you. I am Raziel, whether you believe it or not. If you truly wish to see me whole, then let me pass!"

Kain snarled as he gave ground, right up to the edge of the shield.  There was nothing wrong at all with backing down from a battle -- approaching later, or from a more devious angle, after he'd had time to think the problem over.  But there was no time to think now, and the apparition was striding forward with power crackling through it, and every sense of self-preservation screamed at him to get out immediately.  Except.  Kain plunged his hand through blue shell of shield, grasped Raziel's wrist, and hissed the words to invoke teleportation.   
    
Nothing happened.

As of course it did not.  Kain had never had much recourse to use his sole teleportation spell, save for a quick escape.  And though, with practice, one could expand upon the spell... Kain had not.  He had the ability to lay but one end point.  And that was currently in Haven.   
    
Kain unleashed magic to slow the creature, and then lunged.

Raziel had advanced even as Kain retreated—then he had lunged when he saw what Kain was trying to do. He was almost more surprised than his too-young sire when the spell did not work. Thankfully the paralysis spell Kain had tossed had no effect on his wraithly body, because Raziel had no chance to turn his forward momentum into a dodge. All he could do is twist frantically away from the bare blade of the Reaver—he did *not* want to see whether it would try to devour him, especially now!—and backhand Kain away from his vampiric body.

The hit connected solidly—not enough to do any permanent harm, but enough to at least send Kain staggering backwards. Taking advantage of the momentary opening, Raziel dived towards his body, intending to drag it out of reach.

Kain saw the jagged little bolt of the spell connect and then -- the demon was still moving, and extraordinarily fast, twisting out of the way of the blade with a fluid grace that seemed impossible for such a ravaged form.  Kain never even saw the backhand that struck him.  Kain was impelled back, brought nearly to his knees, and surged up with a furious scream -- just in time to see the demon reach for Raziel's corpse.     
    
And then he was sent to one knee in truth, shielding his eyes with the back of his arm against the blue-hot flash of brilliance.     
    
The black sun -- that electric dark tide -- was back.  And squinting against night-blinded vision -- the demon was gone.     
    
Oh.

For a moment, Raziel thought had been hit by lightning—did Kain cast another spell? He managed to lift heavy eyelids, and groaned—it felt as if a massive block was sitting upon his chest. He had to move, though—had to get to his body .... wait.

He hurt—but it wasn't the dull, everpresent ache of his wraithly form. And he could *feel* again—the prickle of rocks and grass against his skin, the awkward arrangement of his limbs—and his *wings*, pinched and half-folded awkwardly beneath his back. "...what ...?" He tried to push himself upward, but his strength had fled, at least for the moment, his limbs shaking as if palsied in the aftermath of the shock.

Nightblinded Kain might be, but that didn't stop him from driving the Reaver to stand blade down in the broken soil.  And then he strode -- or perhaps stumbled, he couldn't be certain, -- over to the stirring body.  Grabbing Raziel by the center clasp of his pauldrons, he dragged the elder up as much as he could.  "_You_," Kain growled, furious, "had me _concerned_."  He began running his free hand over the places he could reach, checking.  "Are you injured?" No less angry.

"*Now* you ask," Raziel grumbled, but wrapped a hand around Kain's armored forearm, trying to steady himself. "If I'd known ... that monster was lying in wait, I would have avoided the Pillars entirely." Angry—at Kain, at himself, but mostly at the Elder God, for thinking it could manipulate them both—Raziel was nonetheless relieved. He was whole again!

"Warn me before you go anywhere in such a fashion," Kain demanded -- better if Raziel never went anywhere like that, in fact.  It had been difficult for Kain to determine the extent of Raziel's injuries when he'd been... sleeping.  The wings in particular had been limp bundles of joints and membrane -- impossible to tell how they'd folded.  Kain pulled Raziel up a little more, reaching to try to press the trailing edge of one long supportive spar back into position, and sealed his mouth over Raziel's.  

"I hardly had a choi-mmf!" Kain's lips muffled Raziel's snappish reply, hard and full of a possessive warmth that seemed to sink straight into his bones, to chase away the last vestiges left by the Underworld. Clarity returned by degrees, as if summoned by his sire's nearness, and Raziel could not help but respond despite the awkwardness of his position, his mouth opening under Kain's demands, tasting and *wanting*. He shuddered under the touch of Kain's hands upon his wings, careful as they were, unable to protest or draw away.

Kain growled, into that severe, soft mouth, and sank to his knees where he straddled Raziel's body, dragging the elder into a sitting position.  Roughly sitting, anyway, once he made sure none of that stretchy-soft membrane was trapped beneath Raziel.  The wing he'd touched was still not entirely folded -- was being held perfectly still, but Kain didn't know how to move it to any better position, and at least Raziel wouldn't be sitting on it.  Remembering the... lightness of Raziel's body, the thinness of those spars, he was reluctant to do any more, and left the wing for the moment.  He ran his hand down Raziel's side instead, hard, probing for broken ribs.  He pressed his tongue imperiously into Raziel's mouth, tasting his own blood and that electric, midnight energy.  Undamaged.  Just as he'd remembered.

Raziel suffered himself to be poked and prodded and checked over, but only because it was Kain. In his dazed state, it was a familiar liberty, one owed to his sire, no matter if said sire was a bare fledgling himself. And the damnably distracting insistence of Kain's mouth heated his blood and made him struggle upwards, holding that armored form tightly as if for support in a tilting world. He slanted his mouth hard across Kain's, his tongue duelling softly with its intruding mate for a moment, before he nicked it deliberately against a fang, making an offering of his blood.

Kain was just running a hand down Raziel's thigh -- the leather was torn and scuffed in places but nothing beneath seemed damaged, or at least, no longer damaged, when the taste... oh.  Something fell into place, and though Kain still did his best to keep Raziel pinned, the fury subsided.  This time the rumble was deeper than a growl, laced through with pleasure and approval.  His fist left the clasp of Raziel's armor and he wound his arm around the elder's back, under the wings, just beneath where they joined.  Kain clasped Raziel close, very tight.  His hand at Raziel's thigh slid inwards, up, found the leather-clad groin.  

Eyes opening wide, Raziel threw his head back, gasping, as Kain's fingers wrapped hard around the sensitive spot where flight muscles merged with bone. His wings flared involuntarily—almost as if he were preening, regardless of his featherless state, and Raziel could not hide his tremors of pleasure. A low, throttled groan escaped from his throat, and his hands clenched hard on Kain's armor, talons scraping harshly against the tough surface. " ... Kain!" The name was benediction and plea all in one as he bucked upward, into his sire's hands.

"Oh, _Raziel_," Kain breathed, and he should have thought to explore here before.  The cry hung in the still air, and Raziel's wings arced, the white marble shafts of the pillars behind like streaks of moonlight, filtering through the thin membrane.  And he could feel -- under his hand -- the coil and bunch of muscle with the movement, thick ropes of steel-cord strength just beneath the skin.  And there were places so velvety soft, the skin felt like feather-down.  He wanted to put his mouth there.  

Spread like this, held taut, the wings were no less delicate than before, but no longer seemed so... fragile.  "Magnificent," he crooned, fingers working upon the laces of Raziel's breeches.  The tight leather came free, and Kain reached in, withdrawing the length that strained its confinement and stroking demandingly.  He could hardly bear to tear his eyes from the ascendant beauty of the body beneath his, but that perfect, pure line of Raziel's exposed throat was utterly irresistible.  Kain licked there, nibbled, scraped.

Raziel's moan was more felt than heard, a vibration rumbling low in the chest and the surface of his throat. He had barely had a chance to adjust to the change, from being *dead* and hollow and cold to—well, not alive, but something a great deal closer, with hot blood roaring in his ears and clogging his senses with its scent. Kain's teeth at his throat were dangerous, were perfect and *right*, and Raziel let his head fall back, baring his neck with a willing submission he gave to no other, whether mortal or god.

His strength was still so much greater than this younger Kain's, even now—but it did not feel like it, not under such a dizzying assault upon his flesh. His wings flexed and opened, much like a man might curl his fingers into sweaty skin, as bucked into Kain's knowing touch, those soft fledgling fingers a velvet grasp around the taut, aching flesh.

And oh -- there were subtleties to this place that Kain had found.  The softness where the membrane met skin was so very delicate on one side, a little rougher on the other, and the base joint of the wing was heavy with tendon and bone but a firm touch just *there* made Raziel scream.  And between the wings, upon either side of the spine -- delicate little stabilizer muscles that produced no response when stroked lengthwise but when he ran the pad of his finger across them crosswise, dragging the tip of his nail just hard enough to scratch... "Beautiful, Raziel.  So receptive.  You delectate me so -- your strength, your mind, your determination, the way you writhe..." and Raziel was writhing, so hard Kain could only just maintain his grip.

Kain kissed down Raziel's chest, laving, leaving scraping little bites, found the pebbled rise of one nipple.  Sealed his mouth there and sucked, hard, swirling his tongue over.  "Come for me, Raziel," he breathed against the skin, scraping the edge of his nail carefully over the slick head of Raziel's cock, and then bit, sinking his fangs in on either side of the nipple.

Small noises, little growls and half-whimpers, spilled from Raziel's mouth without conscious thought as he writhed under the dual assault on his cock and his wings. No partner had ever paid such attention to those half-concealed areas before, and he thought it might very well drive him mad before Kain was done.

Having those black-nailed hands scraping up his back, discovering every inch of shivering and oversensitive skin was a pleasurable hell—and for the moment, at least, his wits had fled enough that there was no room left for fear. And there was Kain's mouth, fangs nipping at his flesh, and the skim of fingers over his cock—pulling, stroking hard enough that he could feel the iron strength underneath the soft skin. Teasing the flared ridge of the head until Raziel couldn't help but buck convulsively into that grasp, wanting more, the sudden desperate need clenching in his gut and in his balls and spiralling ever tighter until it escaped even that tenuous hold. Kain bit, and pierced his flesh, and Raziel came with a guttural cry, shaking like a dying man as he spilled himself into and under his sire's hands.

Kain was forced to draw his fangs from that flesh, the electrically sweet taste of the elder's blood setting his senses aflame, just to see -- "Raziel, yes, just so -- ah!"-- the sheer beauty as Raziel rose to completion.  Wings flared wider, their dappled cream surfaces bright under the light of moon and stars and the faint radiance of the Pillars.  Raziel's skin -- so perfect, armored yet sensitive, the darker veining like fine marble.  Raziel's talons clasped on Kain's own armor, and the shudders rippled his frame, made his thighs tense beneath Kain's.  And Raziel's face, the expression so beautifully... liberated.

Kain thrummed his pleasure as he stroked harder, through Raziel's orgasm, fingers perhaps too hard on that so-sensitive flesh, not caring.  Kain bit into his own tongue, kissed into Raziel's mouth, just -- gripped by his own sense of satisfaction, pleasure... sense of relief.     
    
The shuddering eased after a time.  Kain broke the kiss, brought his hand to his mouth, licked the pearly, silver-clear fluid from his fingers.  He ducked his head, thrummed into Raziel's throat.  "Elegantly done, Raziel," he murmured.

Feeling boneless and lethargic in the wake of his reanimation and sudden climax, Raziel slowly loosened his grip, folding his wings slowly inward as he tried to overcome his dazed and overstimulated state. Still pinned by Kain's weight upon his hips, Raziel found it hard to bring himself to care, even with the threat of the Elder God still lurking nearby.

Drawing in a breath, he savored the scent of the younger vampire, the lingering taste of Kain's blood in his mouth. "How long ... was I gone?"

"A quarter hour -- perhaps a little over," Kain said, sweeping the pad of his thumb across the head of Raziel's slowly softening cock, and then regretfully enfolded the length behind the leather once more.  He started on the laces.  "I want to examine the pillars briefly, and then we are going to whence I first obtained my teleportation spell."   
    
Despite the allure of Raziel like this, Kain could not stomach tarrying longer here.  He knew not whether whatever had kil... had sundered the meadow was now gone.  And as for the teleportation spell -- there were more scrolls and carvings, other variations of the spell.  Kain had been too hurried at the time to do more than absorb the basics, but... his current skill was clearly inadequate.  

Raziel closed his eyes for a moment, licking his lips as he fought to bring his senses back to earth. He did not protest Kain's high-handedness, for amidst the slowly dissipating haze of pleasure, the Elder Gods words had surfaced once more, echoing in his ears.

"Kain." The brush of those fingers against the lacings of his breeches was a distraction, but Raziel forged on. "What were the circumstances of your arrival into Haven?"

Kain finished with the laces and stood, offering his hand, unprotected by gauntlet or glove.  "I awoke in a Sarafan chapel," he said, unable to contain the faintest trace of a snarl.  It had been one of the more unpleasant awakenings of his existence.  "Or at least, I thought it such."  Kain raised an eyebrow.  "Why?"  

"So you have no memory of the circumstances of your—abduction?" Raziel said, clasping his hand and allowing himself to be hauled to his feet—and ignoring Kain's question, at least for the moment.

Raziel's talons were smooth and slick and scratched against Kain's armor.  Kain made certain the elder was fully upright, then started towards the Pillars.  "Oh, I know exactly what happened," he growled.  The very memory made him furious.  "I was seeking to use Moebius' time-streaming chamber, using books I dug from the ruins of Vorador's mansion.  I thought..." Kain shook his head briefly as he jumped to the Pillars' waist-high platform.  He'd thought he could find something -- someone -- perhaps like unto Raziel, as a matter of fact.  Or the knowledge required to produce his own fledglings, though that was now out of the question.  For the moment.  "One of the Powers took me from that place." Kain's fist clenched.

Raziel blinked in surprise. "You actually remember a Power coming to ... capture you? Which one was it?" He knew of no other Chosen who actually remembered the transition between their world and Haven—why had Kain been different?

Kain folded his arms, gazing up at the Pillar of dimension.  Something felt... wrong? about it.  Less... strong than it had been.  He didn't know whether that was a product of his own absence, or his imagination, or... something else.  "I do not know.  I have not met it since."  Somewhat to Kain's relief, truthfully.  The thing... had been old, like the way Raziel or Count D were old.  "Whatever it was... I think it will be amongst the more difficult to destroy.  If we learn that the Powers' tale is not in verity, as you say," he admitted.

Kain's answer did not satisfy Raziel's curiosity, but there seemed little point in pursuing the matter further—at least for now. After all, even though Raziel had learned the titles and functions of all of the Powers, he had met only a handful. How could he expect a fledgling Kain to know which he had encountered?

Stepping away, Raziel followed Kain's gaze to the Pillars. He was no Pillar guardian, however, and did not have his sire's link to them. He had to rely upon his more mundane senses, and while he had been witness to the Pillars' sundering, this was the first time he had seen them so ... newly broken. Their surfaces, already corroded by decay, were a sooty grey, and the jagged stumps pierced skyward like knives, not yet eroded down by time and the elements. Raziel knew the wound that those stumps represented, and it was ... sobering, to say the least.

Kain reached out to the Pillar of Dimension, letting his fingertips rest on the surface, then scuffed the ground, thinking.  He picked up a sliver of marble, somehow knowing it to be part of that pillar.  "Whatever it was, it was old.  Something like you, perhaps, but... different." Kain shook his head.  "It had me trapped for perhaps the span of a minute, before it thrust me through the portal."  He trotted over to the pillar of Nature.  Perhaps Count D could make something of a fragment of its marble.

"What are you doing?" Raziel asked with a puzzled frown. Kain was not one for pointless sentimentality—what use could he have for such pebbles?

Kain paused, turning the two fragments over in his hand.  He could tell which came from each Pillar, of course.  But now that he effectively touched both pillars at once, the difference was... obvious.  "If this is the same year as my abduction," he mused, looking up, "Then sometime in the past few months, the Pillar of Dimension has... degraded.  More than the others."  He held out the stones, thoughtfully.  "Can you feel the difference?"

Raziel took the small stones, and frowned down at them. They lay in the palm of his gauntleted hand, inert. There was no sense of resonance, or of power ... only the faintest fading tickle of magical energy. He shook his head and handed them back. "No, I do not, I'm afraid." Not that he thought Kain was lying. Far from it. He was very much afraid he knew the cause behind the imbalance as well.

_Hylden._

Kain nodded and took the stones back, idly tucking them away in an extradimensional pocket.  He made one last round, passing his hand over the cracked surfaces.  Awareness that their attacker could return at any moment urged him haste, and he found his attention frequently drifting back to Raziel's aura, just checking on him from time to time.  Finally, he rejoined the elder, having uncovered no answers.  He'd think on the matter later, someplace safer.  As fortune would have it, he knew just such a place.  "I wish to revisit the shrine where I found my teleportation spell.  It is attached to a mausoleum west of Ziegsturhl.  Can you follow me?"    

"I can," Raziel affirmed, then glanced down and moved to more solid footing. The Elder God's words still lurked in the recesses of his memory ... but for now he chose to let them lie. He certainly wasn't about to destroy Kain, and therefore his future self, no matter what that old monster wanted!

Kain nodded and then took off.  The bats circled upwards in a tight swirl as Kain waited, making certain that the Raziel's thick, black, electric aura was well off the ground before he struck out for the distant landmark of the town of Ziegsturhl.  The land was thickly wooded, traced by rivulets and streams that had made this early part of Kain's journey so hazard-fraught.  The ancient, decaying graveyard he sought was an hours' flight west, but the night was clear and calm.  Kain finally located the largest mausoleum and reformed atop its roof.  He jumped down and made his way towards one of the entrances.

The wind was cold around his wings, on his face, the stars shining above, concealed only by a few ragged ends of cloud. There was no one to see them from the ground—the peasants here knew well what lurked in the night, and huddled behind locked doors and feeble superstitions as soon as the sun went down. Raziel almost regretted it when they reached their destination—he wanted to continue, to enjoy his mastery of the skies even longer. But the trailing cloud of bats that he followed were spiralling downward, and he followed them, backwinging as he landed on the slate rooftop after Kain.

This mausoleum seemed ... familiar, though Raziel had seen so many that for the moment he could not place it.

The entrance hallway was broad, lined with niches and the remains of ancient corpses.  There was still a trace of the sigils that had been painted on the floor -- runes to keep the undead at rest.  Rather ineffectual ones, in Kain's opinion, considering that he'd been forced to slay several skeletons here.  A hidden latch caused a stone wall to rumble aside, revealing the small, shrine-like space where Kain had found his teleportation spell.  Just past that was the place Kain had been interred.  

If Kain had any abode in Nosgoth, that room would be it.  There was little here anymore, for he'd grown able to carry most necessities with him.  But there was fabric enough for a bedroll or three, candles and lamps for reading, a few carvings and tapestries he'd thought interesting, as well an assortment of battle artifacts which he simply did not have room for.  There was a large, framed picture over one broken crypt -- a likeness of himself, as a human, though Kain personally thought it a terrible one.  Kain had not been here for months, even before his abduction, and the mausoleum smelled musty with moisture from the spring rains.     
    
It was, in short, a wholly inadequate place to bring Raziel.  Not that Kain had intended ever to bring anyone here at all, but.  Well.  It would have to do.  At least he had not accidentally left a human chained in one of the small cells near the entrance -- they were always such a mess when they died.

Raziel looked around, with an idle sort of curiosity. His gaze stopped short as he saw the painting, however, and his eyes widened—not in surprise, but in recognition.

"Ah, now I remember what this is ..." he said quietly, half to himself. Kain's own crypt, the one he had been interred in as a human. He wondered what had happened to it, centuries later. Certainly none of Kain's offspring had been invited there, as Kain continued to spread the legend of his deification.

Kain followed the elder's gaze.  For any other, the state of this mausoleum wouldn't really have mattered -- but then, Kain wouldn't have brought anyone else here anyway.  He turned the idea of destroying the complex -- and that awful painting -- over, decided he rather liked the notion.  "What do you know of the magics of teleportation, Raziel?" he asked, turning instead to the ancient engravings and carvings on the wall.  Astronema had been adept at a spell similar to this -- she'd evidently not even needed to lay endpoints in order to teleport.  

"Very little," Raziel confessed, moving to watch Kain. "It was not something ... I ever had occasion to learn." Or you to teach. He never knew if that was because Kain wouldn't, in order to maintain his power over his offspring—or simply couldn't, because the talent did not run in them.

Kain drew a breath to reply, and then paused.  How very strange.  Come to think of it, had he seen Raziel use magic at all?  Well, yes.  The telekinetic blast Raziel had used bespoke a considerable amount of raw power, and there was something he had done with fire, which was perforce a hazardous element for a vampire to attempt to control.  But then... teleportation was perhaps a rather rare spell.  Kain had seen no other shrines like this one.  "It might have been a useful magic to employ, back at the Pillars,"  Kain suggested.  He found the small, square crystal -- perhaps the size of a playing card -- within which the precepts of the spell were imprinted, and handed it over.  "Can you read this?"

Raziel took the crystal gingerly, holding it in the tips of his talons and staring into it. At first the symbols seemed to make no sense, for all their familiarity. Then, as he tilted it this way and that, a stray shaft of light illumined the interior, bringing the words into sharp relief. He sucked in a breath in surprise as the symbols suddenly became words—archaic, to be sure, and difficult to understand, but nevertheless readable. "I do," he said, wondering.

"Good," said Kain, approving.  Human mages could learn apparently the same spell via long practice -- Kain knew not what made this method so much faster.  But something in these particular ancient constructs seemed... familiar to him, seemed to resonate with him.  He'd not known whether Raziel would be as receptive.  And as much as he disliked handing power to any creature... he could not risk Raziel to another attack, such as had occurred at the Pillars.  "The most complicated portion is the first -- the spell requires an endpoint be laid before the second half will function.  The process can be a little speeded by...."

Raziel listened intently, his sole focus on Kain and the instructions he was being given. It was a familiar formula—Kain as the teacher, Raziel the student—and he fell back into it as easily as breathing. Once explained, the spell the crystal held became clear and Raziel almost laughed in self-deprecatory triumph. How simple it was! How could he have not understood it before?

"So you can only go to one place, then? Your—endpoint, correct?" That could not be all of it, for the elder Kain was not subject to such limitations. But then, he had been granted centuries in which to refine his technique.

  "Currently, that is the case," Kain said.  Actually, using only the instructions on that crystal, Kain had originally only been able to return to this one place.  But trial and error had loosened that restriction for Kain, and given the adeptness and speed with which Raziel absorbed the concepts, the elder should not experience such restriction at all.  "But I have seen human adepts use similar spells to lay multiple such markers.  It seems there may be more to the spell than I originally supposed, though..."  Kain spread similar crystals and clay squares of runes out across the surface of a nearby sarcophagus, and summoned a ball of light.  "Deciphering the way may take some work.  Tell me, what can you make of this one...?"  

"Let me see." Raziel bent his head to the task. Even with both of them deciphering the symbols, it did not turn out to be an easy one; very few of the runes were in any of the common tongues of the era, and only Raziel's familiarity with bloodscript and the symbols of the Ancients aided his progress. Kain, on the other hand, seemed to have an instinctive grasp of the symbols meaning, if not their exact nature. Raziel wondered if that was due to the Balance scion's nature, even as ignorant of it as Kain was in this time and place—an intuitive understanding of the powers that would aid in his duty.

It took a great deal of time, and the sun was well-risen by the time they deciphered enough of the symbols to begin to understand the spell they detailed. Kain was right—there was more to this teleportation than just a simple hopping to one's 'home', though it appeared that adjusting those parameters took a great deal of skill ... and no small amount of power.

"This is something that will require a great deal of practice in its effective use, it seems," Raziel remarked.

"It does seem so," Kain agreed, turning to look through an old chest.  There were corked flasks here, filled with spelled blood from the Ancient's pools.  Unlike the highly magical runic vials of healing, these containers were large and too bulky and fragile to carry often; their only power lay in the liquid they held.  Some of the flasks were too old, their magic had faded and the blood within vanished.  But there were a handful of good ones left, and Kain removed two and passed one to Raziel.  

Kain worked the cork of his flask free and thoughtfully stirred the runic items with a clawtip.  He'd hoped this spell might provide an easy answer to his dilemma the night past at the Pillars -- a better way to get Raziel out of danger, should something like that happen again.  But it would take some while before either he or Raziel would be capable of that feat.  "For the present time, Raziel, I do not wish you to return to Nosgoth alone," he said, deciding.

Taking the flask, Raziel arched a sardonic eyebrow. "Afraid of what I might do outside of your watchful eye, Kain?"

The corner of Kain's mouth turned up, though it was with a certain self-mocking amusement.  Such an alien thing, to be concerned for any creature, let alone one as strong and self-capable as Raziel.  Certainly not something he'd admit in so many words.  "Something to that effect," he said dryly.  "I am relatively well-positioned to make certain inroads against the Powers from within Haven.  When you return to Nosgoth, it need not necessarily be in my company -- Gaara would suffice.  Or another of your allies; though I would wish to meet them first."

Some of Raziel's good humor faded from his face. "Regardless of what you would wish, if I accede to your *request*, then it is only because I do not wish you to be trapped in Haven as I have been. You do not command me, Kain." _Not anymore._ Or was that a lie as well? "I would recommend you do not forget that."

Kain's mouth tightened, nearly a snarl.  If what he knew -- or thought he knew -- of the timestream was correct, then it should not matter what strange or otherworldly creatures Raziel brought back to any given era.  They _would_ not change history because they _had_ not -- such was the nature of fate.  Unless, of course, one believed in free will, and frankly, Kain was becoming increasingly skeptical.     
    
But fate was an unreliable mistress.  If whatever happened at the Pillars happened again, or if that strange, ancient Power made another appearance, Kain wanted Raziel with backup to hand, be it himself or another.  And to that end, he'd even couch his will as a 'request'.  Kain drew a breath, and then nodded.  "Very well, Raziel.  I request that you refrain from venturing to any era without a confederate."

Somewhat mollified—he had half been expecting Kain to lose his temper completely, regardless of the disparity in their power—Raziel gave him a short nod. "As you wish—I shall take it under advisement." Which wasn't a 'yes'—but wasn't a 'no', either. Popping the cork free of his flask with the tips of his talons, Raziel took a cautious sniff of the contents within, then sipped. The blood was cold, of course, but well-preserved, at least.

Kain concealed a sigh by taking a deep draught of his own flask.  The long storage had not done much for the blood, but it was at least quite drinkable.  As much as he hoped Raziel saw the wisdom of keeping a powerful ally to hand while in Nosgoth, Kain could not force the elder to do anything, in truth.  As for manipulation... well.  Kain considered a few options, then decided the issue could wait.  For the moment -- "How long do you think it safe to stay?  There will be a full moon in a week, and I think you might have interest in the hidden city."  

"I misdoubt our jailors will begrudge us a week or so, if we wish to remain," Raziel said dryly, suddenly and acutely aware of how short that time seemed to him, if not to Kain. "And if they do, and yank us back untimely—then we shall have learned the limits of our leash, as well as perhaps gaining a new grudge to set against the Powers." He tilted his head. "A hidden city, you say?"

"Indeed," Kain said.  "A most strange and fascinating place, if you do not mind a little battle with resident werewolves.  A splendid place to pick up more Implode artifacts, too, though the complex is only accessible under the light of the full moon."  Kain gathered up what parts of the teleport shrine he thought could be of some use, and downed the last of his bloodflask.  "In the meanwhile, there are a number of petty highwaymen 'twixt here and Ziegsturhl, and past that town, a host of other old caverns and ancient sites."  Rested and now refreshed, Kain headed for the exit.  "Care to come exploring?"

Tossing back the remainder of the blood in his own flask, Raziel set it to one side and stood up. To explore this younger Nosgoth, one for which he had only the briefest memories, with Kain at his side ... for the moment, at least, he could think of nothing better. "It sounds an intriguing prospect, Kain. By all means, lead on."


End file.
